Possibility: The True Hand of God
by Mystic83
Summary: PART THREE IS HERE! What if Lee had gotten the job done but couldn’t make it back to Galactica? What if the Cylons were intrigued by the Commander’s son and what they discovered within him? KaraLee
1. The True Hand of God

This will be a series of stand-alone stories which deal with the choices that the characters on Battlestar Galactica have made throughout the mini-series and first season (I'll be posted in as much of the order of the season as I can). I want to explore what would have happened/changed if things had gone differently. Some of the stories will be angst, some will be shippy, some will be funny. There will be different pairings throughout. Don't feel like you have to check out each one to understand the others. All I ask is that if it intrigues you, then give it a try. Hope you enjoy reading the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them!

* * *

**_There are pivotal moments in one's life where if you take the wrong path everything may change. Those changes may be for the good or for the bad. The possibilities are endless.

* * *

_**Kara Thrace hadn't known a person could get more tense than she already was. This insane plan of hers had actually been put into action, and now the fate of the Fleet lay in the hands of someone else. Granted, that someone else was the only man she thought had even a hope of getting the job done. But still. He wasn't her. 

True, Apollo was almost as good at flying a Viper as she was. She could never tell him that to his face, of course. It would be admitting that she was not the only indispensable person in the Fleet. That maybe since he showed up, there was someone else capable of doing the crazy things that had become her trademark. Relinquishing her title was not something she would willingly do. No matter how good he was. No matter how much of a challenge he posed for her to keep herself one step above. No matter how many of her nasty character traits he had begun to display.

One in particular must have been the cause behind this current move because now he had decided to take his Viper into a conveyor belt that might just end abruptly instead of going straight through to the refinery. Certain death lay in front of him.

Which conveniently explained why she suddenly wanted to either punch the nearest subordinate or frak the first attractive guy she could get her hands on. Sex and violence, those were the only two things that could keep her calm.

And right now, she was anything but.

She had a bad feeling about this.

"Galactica." His voice rang through the CIC. "Apollo. Mission--" A small chuckle trailed through the airwaves. "--accomplished."

The laughter and screams that erupted around her were overwhelming. Add to it the fact that Apollo had not closed the comm channel yet and the sound of his laughter was carrying through to her ears, and she wasn't surprised that she suddenly felt the need to cry for the first time in a long while.

She impulsively pulled the President into a hug before realizing what she was doing with the leader of the Twelve Colonies. After a quick apology and a fair amount of blushing on her part, she was surprised to feel the President embrace her once more, this time a little more tender and a little less enthusiastic. For one second, Kara remembered what it had been like as a little child during those rare times when her mother showed her affection.

She vaguely heard the President thank her for securing enough tylium for the Fleet to last the next few years. Instead, her mind was caught up in memories of her mother and her childhood on Caprica and memories of the times she had spent with Lee, doing crazy things that usually ended up with one of them getting into a brawl. Things were easy back then.

"You still feel rather tense, Lieutenant. The operation was a success. You can relax now. I won't be punishing you for keeping me in the dark."

Kara gave her a nervous smile. "I know. I just have this hunch that that was way too clean and easy for what we had supposed would happen. Things don't usually go like that when I'm involved." Her eyes darted for a few seconds to the display pinpointing the positions of the fighters still out in the field. Everything seemed to be fine. "These people are all I have," she whispered in a small moment of honesty.

As the words came out of her mouth, she felt the CIC tense up again and grow silent. She took a step away from the President and peered down at all the motionless bodies before her. Something was definitely not right.

That's when she picked up on it. There was barely any sound in the whole ship. Apollo's comm channel seemed to be the only thing emitting noise.

"Galactica. Apollo. I repeat, there was one last Raider on the mining base. I took it out, but…" His voice cut off. Kara knew what he was going to say even before it came out of his mouth, and she suddenly wished that she hadn't been so harsh to him before he had left for this mission. "…but it took out my port engine. I'm not going to be able to make it back to Galactica."

The transmission became choppy, and she could hear Apollo start to swear at his control panel.

And then the CIC fell into complete silence.

"Commander Adama," Lieutenant Gaeta started. When the Old Man turned to look at him, she could see Gaeta suddenly get nervous, and his words caught in his throat. Unable to speak, he simply pointed up at the board tracking the ships around Galactica.

Kara followed his eyes and saw the blip that indicated Lee's Viper disappear.

He was gone.

* * *

Lee Adama pulled himself from the currently smoking Viper where it had crashed into the mining planet he had worked so hard to take control of. His right leg flamed up with pain as he fell the few feet from the cockpit to the gravely earth. He must have jarred it during the landing while he had been trying his best to keep the ship from exploding under the stress.

After a good amount of hobbling and pain, he turned around to watch as the last Mark VII the Fleet had went up in smoke a few yards away.

"Frak," he hissed. He had been hoping that he would still be able to use the comm channel to tell Galactica that he was planetside and would be waiting for them to send a rescue shuttle to get him.

Staring down at his wrist, he saw that he had enough oxygen to last three hours. That should be plenty of time for Kara to realize he had gone missing and start a frantic search of the planet for him. He would expect no less.

And even if Kara wasn't there to make sure someone sent help, he had a feeling his father would be picking up the slack.

When Kara's Viper had been shot down earlier that month, he had asked his father whether he would have spent so much time searching if it had been him stranded alone out there somewhere. His father's answer had been if it was Lee, the Fleet would have never left.

He hoped his father hadn't been exaggerating. He really didn't fancy dying on an asteroid in the middle of nowhere.

Sighing, he sat down on the ground to take a look at what was wrong with his leg.

* * *

Kara threw her cane to the floor of the bunkroom as she raced to her locker. Her flight suit was exactly where she had left it, in a pile at the floor of her locker. There hadn't really been time to hang it up after the whole crash-landing, knee-frak-up catastrophe. Plus, it wasn't like she was going to be using it anytime soon.

She slid into the suit while causing only a minor bit of pain to her knee. Zipping up, she ignored the voice of reason in her head that said she should pick up the cane and use it. Her heart was telling her that it would only slow her down. And every second was precious right now.

So leaving the cane behind, she made her way down the corridor to the busy hanger bay. She couldn't help but notice the victory celebration that should be happening was not. It wouldn't be very appropriate considering the hero of the day was out there somewhere, wasting away on an asteroid.

"Chief," she screamed as she did her best to slid down the ladder from the scaffolding above the deck without jarring her knee. "Tell me you have a fraking Raptor that's launch-ready."

"I have one, sure. What do you plan on doing with it?"

"I plan on flying it out of here and picking up our lost CAG," she growled. "Which one is it?"

The Chief shook his head. "I can't just let you take out one of my ships without the Commander's approval."

"Approval?" she yelled. "Why the hell do you need his approval? In case you've forgotten, it's his son out there."

"I still need at least a verbal confirmation."

"Frak verbal confirmation. Just tell me which Raptor is ready and I'll do the rest. I don't care if they haul me to the brig the second I get back. We don't have time to waste arguing about how to do this properly. Lee needs us." She flinched slightly at her use of Apollo's first name. She tried to keep the professional relationship separate from what she felt for him personally. Sometimes it wasn't easy.

"I know that we need to get out there to get the CAG. But I can't just be handing a Raptor over to you. We're running out of ships. I can't risk it unless the Commander gives the okay."

"Lieutenant Thrace!"

Kara turned to stare at the deckhand who had called her name. She thought his name was Soaksinus or Sosignknee or some other ridiculous word. It made her wish that deckhands got call signs, too. Things would be a lot simpler. Maybe she would be able to learn all their names.

"Commander Adama is on the phone. He wants to know--" The young deckhand cleared his throat and tried again. "He wants to know, and I quote, 'what the frak a hotheaded pilot who is not even cleared to fly is trying to pull with a stunt like this'."

Kara bit her lip and debated whether she actually had to take the phone or if she could just convince the Chief to ignore the man who called the shots and let her take out that bird. Figuring she didn't really have a chance either way, she reached out to grab the receiver and nodded at the deckhand. "Starbuck, sir."

"Kara, you cannot just jump into a Raptor no matter how much you want to get Lee back."

He must be in his quarters if he was willing to talk so candidly. "I'm sorry, sir. Do you not want me to get your son back?"

"You saw it just as I did, Kara. The position indicator on a ship only goes out when it's a particularly bad crash. The probability that Lee actually survived it is--"

"Good enough to warrant a search," she interrupted. "We have to try. You can't say we don't have the fuel to wait here for a little while just in case."

Adama sighed. "Fine. You win. You can take the Raptor. But you have to make sure it's one hundred percent flight ready. You have to take another officer with you in addition to the usual ECO. I want someone to be there to take over if the flying gets to be too much for your knee."

"You're not going to make me stay behind."

"I couldn't make Lee rest for a second when you went missing. I'm not up for another failed challenge like that."

"Understood. Is that all then, sir?"

"You have to promise me that you won't stay out there forever. If you can't find him within a few hours, there's nothing to find. Don't hold on to another ghost, Kara."

She tensed at his subtle mention of the few months after Zak's death when she was convinced that somehow he had made it through the fiery mess in that landing bay and was alive out there somewhere. It wasn't a phase in her life she was proud of, and she would always be eternally grateful that the Old Man was the only one who knew of its existence. "He's not dead so he's not a ghost," she finally answered.

"All right. Bring my son home."

She smiled and hung the phone up. Turning to the Chief, she smirked. "I think I just got your damn verbal confirmation. Where's my bird?"

* * *

Lee smiled and gave a little wave as he saw the Raptor approaching. Twenty minutes. She must have broken some sort of record, getting help out here that quickly. Either that or she had flown the shuttle herself the second she realized he was in trouble.

Kara Thrace might be a pain in his ass most of the time, but when he needed it, she was there for him. Which is why he had a feeling she would be the one behind the controls of his rescue ship.

The Raptor shook the ground under his feet slightly as it made contact with the asteroid. The ramp slid down, and he wasted no time in racing up the platform and on to the vehicle. He could just imagine what choice words Starbuck would have for him about screwing up what could have been the perfect operation.

It would be refreshing to hear her yell.

Plus, she might congratulate him on completing his mission. Maybe even apologize for not having faith in him. He had never been so happy to prove someone wrong.

"So start screaming, Ka--" He stopped in his tracks when he realized it wasn't Kara at the shuttle's controls. "Boomer. I wasn't expecting you. Can't Starbuck pilot a Raptor, bum knee or not?" He winced, knowing that he shouldn't have let on so quickly that he had expected it to be his lead pilot in front of him. Everyone probably knew how much he favored her, but it still wasn't good to draw attention to it.

"She figured it would just be easier for me to swing by and pick you up. That way she could save most of her energy for the verbal thrashing she plans on giving you for scaring her so much."

Lee let out a chuckle that he hoped didn't betray the eerie feeling he suddenly had that something was not right. He knew Boomer was just trying to keep the mood light, but her comment didn't make a lot of sense. Number one, if Kara was fit to pilot a Raptor, she would be the one picking him up no matter who was in a closer position. She wouldn't trust that job to anyone else.

Number two, there's no way the Kara he knew would admit to anyone how much it bothered her when he was in danger. They had made a pact when they had first realized they were going to be serving together on Galactica for the long haul. It was a pact mostly out of self-preservation. No one would take too kindly to knowing that the CAG and the Fleet's best pilot were emotionally attached to one another.

Therefore, she would have never publicly said that she was mad at him for scaring her.

For fraking up her mission, sure. But scaring her? No way. Not Starbuck.

Number three, there was a critical piece missing from Boomer's Raptor that was starting to bug him more and more each second he was aboard. There was no ECO in the command chair in front of him. "Boomer, where's Crashdown?"

"Sir, it's a long story. Why don't you strap yourself in and I'll tell you all about it while we make our way back to Galactica? I don't know about you, but I could go for a good celebration in that hanger bay right about now."

Lee nodded and stepped over to the empty ECO chair to strap himself in. He only flinched slightly when the Raptor's doors banged shut. Sighing as he felt the pressure level change in the ship and the atmosphere pump all around him, he unlocked the collar of his helmet and slid it off. "It's nice to be able to breath--"

He stopped short as he felt his head become light. "Is the atmosphere functioning right, Boomer? It feels a little off. Try to adjust it by hand." He rubbed his neck and nodded at her. "Even if it doesn't work, I think you might want to get it checked by the Chief when we get back."

Boomer smiled and hit a few buttons on the control panel. "Maybe this will help for now."

Lee watched the monitor in front of him in confusion as the oxygen levels decreased. Before he could even get a word of protest out, he felt his head becoming heavy as he lost consciousness

Boomer powered up the FTL drive and made her way into the blind spot behind the asteroid. She smiled as she saw her ship briefly drop off of Galactica's sensors and then hit the button to jump her Raptor out of the system.

* * *

He woke suddenly and tried to take a look around him. The brightness of the room he was in caused him to cringe and make an attempt to shield his eyes. He must have been out longer than he thought if a little thing like light was hurting him so much. He vaguely felt himself trying to remember what had happened to make him lose consciousness, but he just couldn't make his head stop spinning for long enough to remember.

It was at that moment that he realized his arms and legs were tied down to whatever he was currently laying on. He pulled lightly on his bonds and tried to figure out why they were there.

"You're awake."

He opened his eyes a little bit so that he could make out the shape of Sharon Valerii. She was sitting on a chair next to the bed he was laying on. "Lieutenant. Am I in sick bay?"

"Of sorts, yes." She smiled at him and grasped his hand. "You really impressed them. Otherwise they wouldn't have sent me to pick you up."

He let out a laugh. "I don't think my father would have left me there even if I had failed in my mission. And I sure as hell know Starbuck wouldn't have, no matter how much of a disappointment I was."

"William Adama and Kara Thrace are inconsequential. They have been tested and found wanting. You on the other hand…"

The voice rang sweetly in his ears, and turning his head, he took in the appearance of a pretty blonde wearing a skintight red dress. He had seen her before somewhere. He just couldn't place it.

"How are you feeling, Lee? We were worried that Sharon had shown a little too much enthusiasm in completing her mission. At least she didn't permanently damage the goods. "

"What mission?" he said, his brow furrowing in concentration. He didn't remember Boomer being assigned any other mission besides keeping a lookout on the Cylon forces while Lee's squadron snuck in to take out the mining base.

The pretty woman smiled and motioned for Boomer to step back, which she promptly did. "She was to collect you. It seems your actions have interested our god."

"God?" he said, his face clearly showing his confusion at the use of the singular term. At this point, he really wasn't sure he had actually woken up. Everything was just a little too odd. And this woman was still giving him major flashes of déjà vu.

"You seemed to have become a valued commodity to the human race and therefore you are of value to us. Testing you should prove very enlightening."

Lee felt himself begin to panic as he realized that he wasn't dreaming and there really was something wrong with this picture. If he was in sick bay, where was his father? Where was Kara? Why wasn't there a doctor there monitoring his condition? He pulled against his bonds once more. Why hadn't it occurred to him that if he was really on Galactica, he wouldn't be tied down? "Who the hell are you?" he hissed, glaring at the two women now that his eyes had adjusted to the light in the room.

"I'm Six, and she's Eleven," the blonde said with a smile even though she knew her words made no sense to him. "And you just might be the basis for Thirteen. We'll see if my hunch was right and you really are as important as our god thinks. If you are, we can certainly use you. You could get us into places we never dreamed we could."

He did a double take as two more blondes who bore an identical resemblance to this Six woman entered the room with some medical equipment. They both smiled at him in the same way that the first had, and he felt his blood run cold.

"And if you're not useful to God, well, I'm sure I could come up with something fun to do with such a strapping young man like yourself." Her words made his blood run cold.

"Don't be afraid, Apollo. A god of the sun has nothing to fear from a few machines," the woman he had known as Sharon Valerii said in a sort of fakely reassuring tone from where she stood a few yards away.

And suddenly it all clicked in his head.

The Cylon mole within their Fleet. The inside information as to where his damaged Viper had landed. The use of the singular term god. Numbers instead of names for his captors. The reason why Kara was not piloting the shuttle.

It seems he had drawn the unwanted attention of the Cylons.

* * *

Kara sat in the empty hanger bay, her hand lightly touching the coffin next to her. She knew that within the hour, it would be flushed out of the airlock. It didn't matter that his body was not inside. It was still too painful for her to accept.

She had convinced the President to let them keep searching for Lee for three solar days. They had found his wrecked Viper within half of an hour that first day. Because there was no body inside, she had been able to argue that he might be on the asteroid somewhere. She ignored the medical personnel who told her that if he had been inside when the Viper exploded, there would be no body.

He wouldn't have just sat there in a damaged Viper, though. Apollo was too smart for that.

Eventually, it was clear that if he had gotten out of his Viper and was alive down there, his oxygen would have run out long ago. She doubted he had been as lucky as she was in figuring out how to work a damaged Cylon Raider.

Resting her head against the cool metal beside her, she shut her eyes and willed away the pain.

The only reason he had done something as stupid as risking his life in that conveyor tunnel was because she had told him that she had no faith in his ability to get the job done. At the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do to motivate him to succeed. Now, she just wished she could take it all back.

She wished she could tell him that she was only irritated that she couldn't fly with him. That she hadn't meant what she had said. That she knew if anyone besides her had to blow up a Cylon mining station, it should be him. She did have faith in him.

"Too much, it seems," she whispered to the coffin. "My faith killed you. You wouldn't have done anything half as stupid as you did if you thought that there was another option. If you thought that you could have finished the mission in your own style. Because, damnit, Lee, you were good enough to do it. You didn't have to do something so frakin' stupid."

Her voice suddenly failed her as the emotions came flooding back. Shrugging back the tears, she sat up and looked around the hanger. It had been decorated by the deck crew in a final farewell to the hero of the Fleet. His death had given them all a real shot at staying alive.

The decorations from his funeral had not been taken down. It seemed like she was not the only one who was having a hard time putting Lee's memory to rest.

Boomer hadn't been able to sleep one night since that day. She said every time she shut her eyes, she imagined what the CAG had done to save her when she was piloting that Raptor back from Caprica full of survivors from the holocaust. He had talked with her quietly the next few weeks about leaving Helo behind. He had understood the pain she was going through.

Specialist Cally hadn't been able to make it through a full shift without crying. She kept remembering the way Lee had taken on all those prisoners to get her the medical attention for the gunshot in her abdomen. He had been her personal savior. She hadn't even had time to properly thank him.

Kat had been in and out of sickbay with various excuses why she could not fly the patrols for which she had been scheduled. She had been flying as Lee's wingman since Kara had hurt her knee, and it seemed like having a new person by her side in the air was just a little too hard to bear right now.

Dee was still doing her job in the CIC with as much efficiency as she ever had. So she had to take periodic breaks because her mind kept replaying Apollo's final transmission and the grief was too much. No one faulted her for that. Especially since she spent her free time talking with anyone she could find lounging around the break rooms. She was the one who refused to let everyone else forget how much he had meant to the Fleet. Dee had told Kara that as soon as she felt up to it, she would gladly relinquish that responsibility to her.

Trying to blink back the tears along with the memories, she looked back down at the coffin and rubbed it gently with her hand. "So. You finally did it, Lee. You've forced me to grow up. I'm the CAG now. Seems like I'm the only one who can get this group of screw-ups in shape now that you're go--." She paused and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for being such a frak-up. I made it a lot harder for you than it should have been. You think with how much I love you that I would have done everything to make you comfortable on this ship. But that's not my style. No. I like to tease and yell, throw a couple of punches, whatever I could do to get you riled up. Well, I don't feel like doing any of that no more. You finally broke me of my bad habits."

"Kara."

The voice made her jump to her feet, but she really wasn't that surprised to know that he was there. "Commander, sir."

"It's time."

She glanced over at the empty coffin before looked over at him. He flinched at sight of all that pain welled up in her eyes. "No. Not yet. I'm not ready. I… I can't."

"The funeral was over three weeks ago. We have to get this memorial to Lee out of here. We have to give him the proper goodbye that he deserves. And then we need to move on."

"How can you let him go so easily?" Kara asked quietly.

"It's hard, but it's what he would have wanted. Even if he had survived his crash, we didn't find him in time. I promised him once that I would never leave him behind. If that planet had a better atmosphere, we wouldn't be leaving. But he couldn't survive this long in it. So I have to let him go. For the good of humanity, I have to move on."

"I can't believe he's gone."

"He is, though."

She sniffed lightly and gave him a small smile through her tears. "I loved him."

William Adama didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

Instead, he just leaned against the wall next to her and slipped his hand into hers.

* * *

Kobol. The birthplace of the gods.

It was breathtaking.

Boomer looked back at Crashdown. "We should get back to Galactica. I think they're going to want to hear firsthand what we've found."

Crashdown nodded. In the back of his head, he knew it would be just the thing to renew the hope of the Fleet. There had been a definite shift in morale since Captain Adama had sacrificed himself for that source of tylium a month ago. No one would admit to it, but it had almost been a worse blow than if their operation had failed.

Maybe the presence of the birthplace of humanity would help them move past the pain.

Smiling, he watched the planet drift by as Boomer flew them back towards their home.

Maybe it was the thought of a new hope. Or the fact that they had managed to pull off a miracle discovery yet again. Or the sheer beauty of what was in front of their eyes.

Either way, they were too preoccupied to notice a small Cylon Raider work its way silently through space and latch itself on to the bottom of their Raptor, out of sight.

* * *

Lee stepped outside of the alcove he had been hiding in for the past two hours. It had been a risky move to disengage from the Raptor and land his ship in a 'hot' launch tube. Equally risky was him stepping outside the ship when he still wasn't sure there wouldn't be another launch from this particular tunnel. He had guessed that he would have enough time to wait until he felt secure enough about stepping out into Galactica without being noticed by any of the personnel.

His guesses and suppositions had paid off, though. There wasn't one single sign of life in the tunnel.

Stepping into the nearly-deserted hangar bay, he felt a familiar twinge in his right leg. It had never really healed from the crash he had that day on the asteroid. Granted, the Cylons had re-broken it a few times to test his healing capabilities, so that couldn't have helped any.

He pushed his thoughts of the Cylons out of his head and made his way through the shadows to the nearest equipment locker. The door beeped open with the code he punched in. For such an efficient ship, they really should change the security codes periodically.

It only took him searching two cabinets to find what he needed. A standard issue handgun given to all pilots when they are assigned a ship to serve on. He wouldn't need more than a handful of bullets to do what he had come here to do. After that, he had no idea. All he knew was he had to finish this.

There was a small noise at the hatch, and he pushed himself into the small space between the cabinets as someone entered the locker. He knew that he had no chance of accomplishing his mission if anyone knew he was on Galactica, but he really didn't want to hurt any innocent people in the process.

"Jesus, Cally," he heard a young man say. "If the Chief knew that you had left this locker wide open, he would have your head on a platter."

"I told you, Socinus. I didn't leave it open."

"You were the last to use it."

"I locked the door after myself." He smiled as Cally came into his line of vision. She was one of the people he had missed the most when he had been gone. She had never confused him or done anything out of the ordinary. She had just been there to help him fit into life on Galactica. Memories of her were one of the few untainted things he had left.

He shut his eye for a moment, willing the memories to go away. He needed to be focused, and remembering what his life had been like a short time ago would only distract him.

Cally's gaze swept around the equipment locker. "Nothing looks out of place. Let's lock it up and get out of here. These armory lockers give me the creeps."

"Good. I have to get down to Launch Tube 3. The Chief says something's blocking the air filtration system."

Lee heard them shut the door and waited a few seconds before sliding out of his hiding spot. He was glad that they hadn't taken the time to properly check to make sure everything was in place. As much as he wouldn't have wanted to hurt them, he couldn't let them alert the rest of Galactica to his presence. Not until his job was done.

He slipped into the hallway after checking to make sure it was clear. Taking a few out of the way passages and a stairwell that probably hadn't been used in years, he made his way slowly to the CIC. He had picked up on a few words of gossip as he snuck his way through the ship. That was where she would be. After their discovery of Kobol, Boomer would be taking in the praise of all the ship's commanding officers at this central location. Right about now, the CAG would probably be placing some sort of medal of honor on her shoulders.

Letting himself forget for a moment why he had chosen to return to Galactica and the dirty job he had ahead, he wondered who they had gotten to replace him.

* * *

Kara held her hand out to Lieutenant Valerii to congratulate her. Finding Kobol was a big feat and a giant step towards escaping their Cylon tormentors. Smiling, she pinned a medal on Boomer's dress blues and rattled off the expected words of gratitude. She really wasn't sure if she was cut out for this whole CAG thing.

Granted, she was slightly distracted by the memory of the Cylon she had interrogated and what Leobon had implied. He had said they would find Kobol and it would lead them to Earth. How had he known this would happen? She couldn't help but wonder if they were playing right into the toasters' hands by staying here in this system.

She kept up her mask of excitement while she joked with Crashdown. It seemed like there was a herd of female CIC personnel standing by to offer him congratulations. She couldn't let an opportunity like that go by without a little teasing. And if the teasing kept her from thinking about how Lee should be there to see this, then all the better.

She was about to mention a certain Ensign who would be upset to find him with so many admirers when a movement caught her eye. There was a man working his way silently through the crowd of congratulators. He appeared focused on what he was doing.

It wouldn't have seemed out of place if the man's clothing hadn't looked like they had been soaked in oil and dirt. True, they had let hygiene protocol slip slightly since their world had been destroyed, but this was pushing it. Something was not right.

She was about to ask Crashdown for a second opinion when she saw the man pull out a gun.

"Gun on deck!" she yelled and launched herself toward the stranger. There was no way she could have stopped him. She was quick but she wasn't that quick.

By the time she had tackled the assailant, he had pumped at least five bullets into Sharon Valerii with a precision she hadn't seen in a long while. Boomer had collapsed in a heap right in front of the whole CIC. There was blood everywhere. Starbuck shut her mind to it. She had a job to do. There was a man currently underneath her that needed to be subdued.

She pulled her fist back to start fighting with the man she had tackled when she realized he wasn't fighting her at all. He wasn't even trying to struggle. She looked down at his face and almost fainted. "Lee?" she whispered, eyes widening in disbelief. Her grip on the collar of his shirt loosened.

"Miss me?"

His smile, different but still so familiar, took her breath away. "What the frak are you doing?"

"Being the hero. Saving your collective asses. It seems to be my newest skill." He shifted slightly in order to hold the gun that was in his hand out to her.

She suddenly realized her fist was still in the air and lowered it to take the weapon from him. In the back of her head, she wondered if this could be a Cylon-induced daydream. "I don't understand."

"Look at the body," he said, pushing her down so she straddled his waist and he had a little more range of motion. He used his elbows to prop himself up so that he could do a scan of the CIC. Not really paying much attention to the woman on top of him, he continued to talk. "Look past the blood. It's all for show."

"She's got no pulse," someone screamed through all the chaos.

"Sir?" Kara called out to whichever commanding officer could hear her. It came out more as a squeak than yell. She could feel herself begin to panic. She could handle a lot, but this might just be a little too much even for her.

She was currently straddling her supposedly-deceased best friend who was claiming that there was some good reason as to why he had shot one of the best Raptor pilots in the Fleet point blank five times. And he was demanding that she do what he told her to. She had no idea if she should.

She really wished someone would just tell her what the right decision to make was.

"Someone get medical personnel down here now, and get the Marines. I want this situation under control, and I want it done now," the Commander yelled.

"Sir?" she tried again. This time it came out a little louder.

"Starbuck, hold that man until we can get him escorted to the brig. I don't want to see him move an inch! If he does, shoot him in the head."

"SIR!" she yelled. Adama finally turned to pay attention to her. "Check the body." She looked down at Lee who was still staring at her with that stone-cold look. "What are they looking for?" she whispered.

"Mechanical parts," he said, smirking.

She nodded, still obviously dazed and confused by what was happening. Something told her that she might not be thinking this through enough. After all, Lee was supposed to be dead. She had no idea when her life had become so surreal.

"Check for…" She looked down at Lee, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. "You owe me." She cleared her throat. "Check to see if she's a Cylon."

"What?" the young man standing above Boomer's body yelled.

"Just do it before I come over there and fraking make you," she threatened in her most intimidating voice, the one that she usually saved for when Lee really pissed her off. Her heart did a little jump as she realized that she might actually have an opportunity to use it again.

The young man paled at her command but wisely did as he was told. After a moment, he froze and stood straight up, turning to look at the leader of Galactica. "Commander Adama, sir. There's a lot of blood but…" His voice trailed off as he seemed to get lost in his thoughts.

"But?" The Commander turned his attention away from where Starbuck still sat, blocking his view of whomever had done this horrible act, to the fallen body of one of his men. Why wasn't the medical team here yet?

"But she's definitely not a human, sir."

Seeing how there hadn't even been one sign of a struggle, he figured Starbuck had the assailant under control and he could divert his attention elsewhere. Adama rushed across his command deck to look down at the body of Sharon Valerii.

It was as clear as day. The woman responsible for finding the fleet water, tylium, and Kobol was one of the enemy. There were signs of small metal pieces where the bullets had burnt her skin upon entering her body. She still looked entirely human except for that little detail. Adama turned back to stare at Starbuck. "How the hell did you know that?" he demanded.

Smiling, she stood up and offered the man below her a hand. "You shouldn't be asking me that. You should be asking your son. He just saved the Fleet from a world of hurt."

William Adama's face went pale as he took in the sight of the son he thought he had lost.

Lee shifted uncomfortably as the whole CIC turned to gape at him. "You should probably get the President and Colonel Tigh on the line, Commander. You're going to want to interrogate me in some private room. Word will get out that I'm back."

Kara gave him a weird look. He didn't even seem happy to be home. Shaking her head, she turned back to Adama. "Sir?"

"Get the President here from Colonial One," the Commander yelled to Dee, ignoring Starbuck for the moment. "Then track down the Colonel and tell him he's in charge of the ship."

"Sir?" she asked again.

"Starbuck, escort Captain Adama to the nearest conference room. Place two guards at the door and stay with him until I show up."

She nodded and motioned for Lee to follow her. When he didn't move, she narrowed her eyes at him. What the frak did he think he was doing?

"You're going to want to shackle me. There are a few more people in this Fleet that are on my hit list." He gave her a smirk and held out his hands. "I wouldn't want to get you in trouble by accidentally killing someone else on the way to that conference room."

"Fine. If that's what you want, Apollo." She motioned one of the newly arrive Marines over and took a pair of cuffs off of him. She slipped them on Lee without another word, and together they moved out of CIC and down the corridor.

"Sir," Lieutenant Gaeta said as soon as Starbuck and Apollo were out of earshot. "I wanted to point out that it's highly likely that the Cylons had Captain Adama. And they may have done something to him."

"He's a threat to the Fleet. I'm aware," Adama growled. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have an assassination to figure out."

And a way to discover if his son had really come back to him.

But he didn't say that out loud. He couldn't.

* * *

Kara sat back and watched as the President of the Twelve Colonies and the Commander of the Fleet tried their best to figure out what had happened to Lee Adama.

"Where have you been all this time, Captain Apollo?" Laura Roslin asked as soon as she had taken a seat at the conference table.

"I got picked up by one of the Cylon models. The woman we all knew as Sharon Valerii. She implied she was there to take me back to Galactica, and she used the internal atmosphere of her Raptor to cause me to pass out."

The President nodded silently. She was obviously as thrown off by Lee's straight-forward explanation as the rest of them. They had all expected Lee to launch into a tirade on why he was not a threat to them the second they had all gathered in this room. Instead, he had just sat there looking at them and waiting until the questioning began.

"What happened next?"

"I woke up in some sort of lab. There was a Cylon Model 11. That's the one that looks like Sharon Valerii. And a blond model they indicated as Number 6. It took me a while to place where I knew her from. She had the same face as that woman Shelley Godfrey."

"What did they want from you?"

"They wanted to test me. The blond Cylon indicated that they had been watching me for some time and that I intrigued them. They said that I felt more than other humans they had studied and yet I was more efficient at fighting them. They wanted to understand why. Their end goal was to create a Cylon model that was based off of me."

The Commander raised an eyebrow. "And did they?"

"They tried. My internal programming didn't agree with their attempts."

Kara rolled her eyes. She had no idea what that was supposed to mean but it definitely sounded like something he would say. She stiffened as she noticed Lee staring at her intently.

"It seems that the other models they based off of real people such as Model 11 all had one thing in common. They didn't fight the Cylons when they were killed. I fought."

She desperately wanted to ask him why. Why had he fought when he thought that the whole Fleet must have abandoned him? Why had he fought after she made it clear that no one onboard Galactica thought him capable of doing his job? What did he have to fight for?

"How did you get away from them?" Roslin asked.

"I didn't," he shrugged. "They let me go."

"They let you go?"

"It seems like they must have gotten what they were looking for."

"The Cylons don't let people go," Adama growled, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

"They did this time."

"Excuse me for stating the obvious. But how can we be sure that you're not a Cylon?"

Kara tensed. She had no idea how the Old Man could speak so coldly when it came to his son. Openly accusing him of being a toaster wasn't the direction she thought this conversation would head. No one had even said how glad they are to have him back. No one had thanked him for doing what had to be done to save the Fleet.

"You have no way of knowing whether I'm a Cylon or not."

Kara finally found that she couldn't stay silent anymore. Someone had to stick up for Lee, and it looked like that person was going to be her. "Yes, we do. Dr. Baltar's Cylon detector. We just have to take a blood sample and test it. Then we'll know."

Lee smirked at her. "Just like we knew that Boomer wasn't a Cylon? She was the doctor's first test subject, wasn't she?"

Kara's face blanched. She hadn't thought of that. "It must have been a mistake in his calculations."

"Or your beloved Dr. Baltar isn't playing for our side." Lee's words hung over the room for a few moments before he went on. "By the way, if I were you, I wouldn't let me near Gaius Baltar. I was able to pick up a few little bits of information while I was being tortured. None of this would have happened if he hadn't been helping the machines."

"But he saved us," the President protested softly.

"No, he condemned us, sir."

The President studied him for a moment before nodding and turning to the man seated next to her. "Commander. May I request that you get some of your men to escort Dr. Baltar to somewhere safe? Somewhere we can keep watch of him like the brig should suffice."

"Are you suggesting we place him under arrest?"

"I think it would be the safest decision right now." She turned to look at Lee. "I'm not sure if I can trust you yet, but we want to be safe. If you're wrong, then I'm sure the doctor will forgive us."

Kara felt herself agreeing. The message had finally hit home. The Cylons could be anyone in the whole Fleet. They could be people she trusted. People she had known since as long as she could remember. Hell. She might be a Cylon herself.

She realized with a start that she had been zoning out. Lee was explaining what the Cylons had done to him. She winced as he described the testing of his pain thresholds. It was beyond anything she could have imagined. She had no idea how he had found the strength to make it back to Galactica. She couldn't even figure out why he would want to.

But there was something there. Something had made Lee come back. She just wasn't sure what or if she even wanted to know

The President held up her hand to cut off his detailed explanation. "There are a few questions I have about how you got here to Kobol that I would like answered."

Lee nodded, and she could see him shifting in his thought process. "I stole a Cylon Raider."

"But you said before the Cylons let you go?"

"They did. If they hadn't, I would not have made it ten feet from their base."

"So you stole a Raider that you didn't know how to fly."

He glanced at Kara before turning back to face his panel of interrogators. "It's been done before."

"How did you know that we would be in this system? How did you even know this system existed?"

"Simple, actually. I was already here."

Commander Adama sat straight up in his chair. "Are you saying that the Cylon base…"

"Is on Kobol. I took the Raider off the planet only to see Galactica jumping into the system. I hung back until I saw the Raptor being dispatched to investigate the planet. I latched on and rode the ship into the launch tunnels. The Raider is still in Tube Three in case you wanted to know."

Adama motioned a man over, whispered something, and then looked back towards Lee. "Continue."

"I care enough about those that are trapped on this ship to want to eliminate the Cylons aboard and their allies."

"Are there many?" the President asked.

"A few. Dr. Baltar and Sharon Valerii are the only two in powerful positions."

"I am still not sure if we can believe you," Adama admitted.

Kara expected Lee to act hurt or at least to get angry. This was his father talking to him, after all. When instead he just shrugged, she found herself wanting to slap him and demand to know what had made him change so much. His coldness was no longer confusing her. It was downright pissing her off.

"Lieutenant Thrace. Commander Adama. If you two would please, I'd like to have a word alone with the Captain."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Kara asked.

Lee smirked. "Don't worry. She's not a Cylon."

She glared and shot up out of her chair, sending the piece of metal furniture back into the wall with a bang. The three remaining people watched as she stalked out of the room. Commander Adama sighed and stood up, following her out of the room.

"Starbuck!" he yelled down the corridor. He was happy to see her stop in her tracks and turn around to face him. "What was that?"

"You can't tell me that seeing him act like that doesn't frustrate you."

"Act like what?" Adama said as he stopped in front of where she stood.

"So cold. The way he talked. He was just there to relate the facts. He had a job to do and that's all that mattered."

"His job involved saving every person he cares about. I have to say that isn't that cold of a thing to do."

She shook her head, and for the first time, William Adama noticed that she was holding back tears. He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "What's really got you so angry, Kara?"

"I didn't even have time to apologize to him," she choked out.

"To Lee?"

"For taking too long to come and get him. I could have hustled a little more, demanded that the Chief let me take that Raptor out without permission. Something. Anything. If I had been a little quicker, the Cylons would not have been able to get a hold of him."

"It's not your fault, Kara. You got out there as soon as it was possible and not a second later. There's no way you could have known."

"He wouldn't have let it take so long if it was me out there."

William Adama didn't know what to say. When it came to either his son or this woman he considered a daughter, he found that all his wisdom went out the window. "I know he wouldn't want you to suffer."

"Did you see him in there? Because the Lee in that room had been keeping score. He would want me to know that I wasn't good enough. When it came down to it, he was the one who could get the job done."

"I think you did just fine. Or did you forget the fact that you could easily have killed him when he shot Lieutenant Val-- that Cylon?"

She nodded, understanding his hesitation to refer to Boomer as anything but a machine. It was a hard adjustment that was actually coming a lot easier than she would have imagined. Sighing, she wiped her hand across her face in a less than graceful manner to get rid of the tears.

"You make me proud every single day. Both you and Lee. I don't say it as much as I know I should, but you two are what gives me hope that we're going to make it through this. That's why you're both important to the Fleet. All anyone has to do to see why we're fighting is look at the two of you. Especially when you're together." Adama cleared his throat as his words started to get to him. "So buck up. I need you to be at your best if we're going to get through this."

She nodded again, and he let go of her shoulder. "What do you hear, Starbuck?"

"Nothing but the rain, sir," she said with a slightly forced smile.

Giving her a final nod, he walked down the corridor and tried to figure out what he was going to tell the Fleet about what had happened to bring his son back to the fold. And whether or not he could really treat his son like a Cylon until they figured out a way to fix this mess.

* * *

Kara waited for the President to leave the conference room before entering. She had been pacing up and down the corridor wondering if now was the right time to talk with Lee. Her mind had gone back and forth, listing the pros and cons of entering that room and either getting to the bottom of what had really happened to him or punching him as hard as she could as many times as she could until he was beaten back into the Lee she knew.

Now that she had the opportunity, she wasn't sure that either option was the right thing to do.

She paused in the open hatch for a moment to watch him. He was sitting motionless in the chair, waiting. It was almost as if he knew she was going to want to talk to him. He didn't have to look over at the doorway to tell her that he knew she was there. They both had always known when the other was watching.

She slid the hatch shut and leaned against the wall just inside the doorway. "So, what did the President have to say?"

"She needs me to go on a mission for her. For the Fleet." He still wasn't looking at her.

"Oh, she does? She wants a man we suspect of being a Cylon to go on a mission for the good of the Fleet? I'm calling bullshit and telling you that now is not the time to be joking. There's a hell of a lot of tension building between the military and the civilian government."

"And you have to know what she said so you can protect my father from her." He shook his head and finally turned to meet her eyes. "I'm not picking sides in this one though you clearly have already. My father is doing what he thinks is best for the people he's in charge of, and President Roslin is doing the same. One is my last living relative, and the other is the only person who seems to want to trust that everything I did was for the good of the Fleet and not because I'm another Cylon mole infiltrating the Fleet."

She pushed off of the wall and walked over to take a seat on the table by where he sat. "And what about me? Or did you forget the fact that I haven't once accused you of being anything other than yourself?"

"No."

Kara stared at him a moment, studying him. She didn't know what he wanted from her. She didn't know if she even had anything to give. Sighing, she went back to her original train of questioning. "So, tell me. What did President Roslin really want?"

"To start, she wants to use me to figure out if Dr. Baltar is really in league with the Cylons. His Cylon detection system should be easy for someone to check. They're going to take some blood off the corpse of the Cylon I killed and run it through. If the system works, then they're going to test mine. Once that's done, I can leave."

She chose to ignore what he meant by saying he would leave. That was not something she could deal with right now. Instead she focused on something she had always been good at. Pointing out his mistakes. "There are some major flaws to your plan."

"No, there aren't."

"Really? Well, what if the Cylons got enough information that they could make a brand-new Apollo model of toaster? Do you want to be tested every single time the Fleet needs you to take a position of power?"

"I'm going to be injected with a transmitter once everyone agrees that I'm human. If anyone bearing my resemblance enters Galactica or any other ship in the Fleet without that transmitter, the CIC will be alerted immediately. The Cylons won't know about this device because only a few of us will be privy to how it works. And they can't get into any new information I've picked up now that I'm no longer with them. That should give us a small window of time in which to sort out the problem without anyone being the wiser."

"Very logical. You've really thought this out."

"You'd be surprised how much time you have when you're busy wishing you were dead."

Again, his cool demeanor set her on edge, making her want to punch something really, really hard. It also made her want to start crying again and never stop. No matter what the Old Man said, this change in Lee was her fault. She was responsible. In the back of her head, she wondered if maybe there was some way she could force him to admit that he blamed her for what had happened.

In the end, though, she didn't care. That hadn't been why she came in here. Not really.

"I'm sorry for not finding you," she whispered, looking down at where he sat still slumped in his chair. For the first time, she noticed how lost he looked.

"There's no way you could have done anything to stop it. Events were set into place long before either one of us thought of that mission. The Cylons wanted me, and they would have done anything to get me. At least this way, I was the only one hurt."

"They hurt you real bad?" she asked, trying to hide as much of her concern as she could under the guise of professionalism.

"I've had worse. Only this time it was physical so I have the scars to show for it."

Kara knew that he was talking about what she had said to him before he went out on his mission to take down that mining base. He was referring to her lack of faith in him. She frowned slightly, knowing her suspicions were right. He had been hurt by what she had done, and in turn, he blamed her for everything that had happened after that point. She had expected that.

"But we really don't have to worry about that now." He stood up out of the chair and walked a few feet down the table before turning back to look at her. "I'm not going to be around much longer."

She sent him a confused look. She had never pictured him to be the type of guy to have a pessimistic attitude. Or a death wish. "You just got back to the Fleet. Of course you're going to be around for a while. We still have to prove that you're not a toaster and then it's going to take forever to get you back up to flight-ready."

He shook his head. "You don't understand. The President has asked me to take one of the Cylon Raiders to Caprica. Apparently, we left something behind that we need. I agreed that it was probably the best option for me right now. I'm leaving to retrieve this little artifact as soon as the tests are done."

Kara's mind recalled the gossip which had been circulating the fleet as to prophecies and what the gods were intending for them to do. "The Arrow of Apollo."

Lee nodded. "So you know the prophecy?"

"The human race will die and be reborn again. There will emerge a dying leader who holds all the signs of being worthy in her possession. When the birthplace of humanity is discovered, the Arrow of Apollo will lead the people to the Temple of Athena. From there, the leader will show the way to promised land." She looked at him sheepishly. "I learned it when I was little."

"The Arrow of Apollo will lead us to the answers we seek. How to get to Earth and away from this lousy way of life."

"You shouldn't go. It's ridiculous to risk your life for something that can't be confirmed."

Lee let out a laugh. It was odd. She hadn't noticed it before. For as long as she could remember, his laughter had been something that could make her relax and let go of whatever was bothering her. Now it only served to make her more tense.

"For someone as frakin' spiritual as you are, I thought you would understand why I'm doing this." When she made like she was going to deny what he said, he held up his hand. "I've seen you praying with your idols when you think no one is looking. The Lords of Kobol mean something to you. You believe in their words."

She really didn't want to get into a discussion on her spirituality right now. "Don't do this, Lee. At least think about it before hoping in that Raider and jumping away from the Fleet."

He stood up. "I can't think of any reason not to. The Cylons won't be expecting it. The Fleet doesn't need me to survive."

"The Fleet does need you."

"They've done just fine without me for however long I was gone. This place barely looks like it's changed."

"You aren't looking hard enough," she spit out, trying to keep her hurt feelings inside. She knew how much the ship had changed while he was gone. If he couldn't see it, then he was blind. "And in case you wanted to know, it's been a month. Thirty-four days if you count today. And it's been the worst thirty-four days the Fleet has had to go through."

"I doubt that."

She had known that it would be hard to make him believe that he had such a large impact on Galactica. She wouldn't have even guessed how much he mattered to them if she hadn't seen firsthand what his absence had caused. This was a battle she knew she could win eventually. But for now it wasn't working. There wasn't enough time to break through his icy shell the easy way.

Looks like she was going to have to get personal. As hard as it would be for her, she was willing to do anything to fix what she had done.

"Please don't do this, Lee. I can't lose you again," she said, standing up and moving towards him.

He let her look at him a moment and hesitantly touch his cheek with her hand before stepping away. She knew that he noticed her hand had been shaking just as she knew that he wouldn't say anything about it. Instead, he looked at her with eyes that she had seen in her mind every day that he had been gone.

And then he broke her heart.

"I want to let you know before I leave that I understand what you meant when you said that I wasn't good enough to get the job done."

She shook her head forcefully. "That was just me being a screw-up. I didn't mean it."

"Yes you did. I've never been good enough. There's a reason for that. I didn't understand at first, but it makes sense now. When I fail on this mission, the Fleet will have lost nothing."

She looked at him in horror. "How can you say that? If you die, the Fleet will have lost everything."

"I mean nothing in the grand scheme of things." He let out another unfeeling laugh. "I mean nothing to anyone on board this ship. I wasn't even supposed to be on Galactica in the first place. Don't think I've ever forgotten that. This is just the gods' way of fixing the mistake they made. It will be better this way. With me out of the way, things can return to normal."

She couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. This wasn't the Lee she had always known and silently respected. This wasn't even close.

He watched as she took a few unconscious steps back away from him. "What's wrong, Starbuck?"

She shook her head and continued to stare at him with wide eyes. "You're really scaring me, Lee. The way you're acting is so cold and hard. It's not like you. What did they do to you?"

"Nothing that I didn't want."

"I don't understand you. You seem happy about how distant you've become."

"And you aren't?"

"No. How could you think I would take pleasure in the way you've become?"

"Isn't this what you wanted, though?" he yelled, holding his arms out in exasperation. "Isn't it?"

Her heart soared just a little bit. Finally. A reaction.

Too bad she had no idea what he was talking about. "I don't know what you mean. I never wanted this."

"You always yelled at me for being too kind. For feeling too much sympathy. For caring too much." He looked at her as his anger subsided as quickly as it had come. "There isn't much that I care about anymore."

"That's not true."

"You know, it's kind of funny. All these years, I would have said that if there was one thing I cared about, if there was one constant in my life, it was you. For years while we were in Academy, all I could think about was how I could make myself good enough for you. What could I do to prove myself worthy? So I threw myself into my studies, worked hard, spent as much time in the simulators as I could. And I came out as the second best pilot in our class. But you never noticed me."

"Lee…"

"Let me finish. I finally realized where I went wrong while I was being interrogated by the Cylons. The men you always took up with, they were rude, hard, cold. They didn't take your shit, and in fact, they pretty much treated you like you were a piece of shit. For years, I had been trying to get your attention by being supportive, by being there, by being just Lee. But that's not what you wanted." He grabbed her by the arms and pinned her up against the wall. His face leaned in and she could feel his words as they whispered across her ear. "This is what you wanted."

She could feel his fingers threading themselves through her hair. "Lee. You're scaring me."

"Good. Because it's only the ones that scare you who you let in."

She bit back a gasp as he closed his fist and pulled her head towards him. His passion was so great that she could feel herself being practically devoured by him. Not even breaking away from her lips for a second, his hands trailed up and down her body like he had been doing this for a million years. He was issuing her a silent challenge to keep her desire and the sudden urge to moan deep inside her. Eventually he rested his hands at the buckle of her pants, and she could feel the teasing in his touch that suggested he was far from done with her.

It would be lying if she said that she didn't want him to throw her down on that table and frak her brains out without a care to who might walk in on them. This new, harsh Lee was exactly the type of guy she fell for.

And the fact that she knew that and was willing to admit to it disgusted her.

That was the reason why she was finally able to muster up the strength to push him away even though her body was screaming at her to let him do whatever he wanted with her.

"Stop it," she panted as she tried to catch her breath. Her hands were still resting on his chest while she did her best to keep him away for at least a moment. "Just stop."

"I thought this was what you wanted."

"You thought wrong." She glared at him. "From any other person, this would be what I want. But the whole reason I let you in past the walls I put up is because I knew that when I finally had the chance…" Her words caught in her throat. "When I finally was ready to hold nothing back, you wouldn't be like the others. You'd be different."

Her heart leapt as she saw the pain suddenly register in his eyes. Funny she hadn't noticed it before, but this was probably the first emotion besides the small flare of anger a few seconds earlier she had seen him display since he returned. She knew from the way he was struggling that this was definitely the first emotion that he hadn't planned on showing.

But like that anger, it was gone as quickly as it came.

He backed away a few feet away from her. "I have to go get ready for my mission to Caprica."

"Don't shut me out," she demanded, taking a step towards him.

"Haven't you already frakked with me enough, Lieutenant?"

His words made her stop in her tracks.

"Go back to your pilots. Teach them the things that I wasn't man enough to. Show them how to work through the pain and grief. How to store it all away for the day when they can finally let it out." He let a small smile out. "And when that day comes, I hope you can get them to understand why I abandoned them."

"You're abandoning me, too," she choked out as she backed herself slowly into the wall of the conference room. She couldn't believe this was happening. Had she really just gotten him back to lose him again?

Because that was what would happen.

It had taken her a little longer than she would have guessed, but she had finally realized that Lee was right. If he took that Cylon Raider to Caprica, he wouldn't be back. If he did this, he wouldn't be coming back.

Her hands braced themselves on the wall as she felt her knees slowly begin to give out under the realization that she was about to lose him and there was nothing she could do to stop it. All she knew right now is she would not self-destruct in front of him. She owed him that much.

"I hope you can forgive me for that someday, Kara."

Her breath caught in her throat. That was the first time he had said her name since he got back. He had been holding that last little piece back from her all this time, and she hadn't even realized.

She watched him back his way to the door, his eyes still locked with hers, and she wondered if she could go through another round of this. Without a sound, he turned and opened the hatch. And she knew that she could go through another hundred rounds of this if only he would say her name again.

She called out hesitantly. "Lee?"

She could see him pause for a moment, but then he stepped through the hatch. The second the door clicked closed, she slid to the floor and finally let the tears fall.

He was gone.

He had finally given up on her.

He wouldn't be coming back from Caprica.

Maybe her grief would be easier to handle the third time around.


	2. Vulnerability

_Author's note: Welcome to the second part of this epic! This could be posted as a stand-alone sequel, but hey! It would be nice to have a BSG story of mine go past Chapter One!_

* * *

Kara Thrace threw her hands up and laid her head down on the desk in front of her. The flight schedule this week was not working out. There were only a limited number of Raptors and Vipers that the deck crew had ready and waiting to hit the air. Most patrols brought back their ship with at least a handful of problems that would keep it from being relaunched. That made it hard to rotate the ships so no single vehicle was taking on the majority of the wear and tear of space.But that wasn't even her main problem. The shortage of ships she could deal with, but right now the thing that had her so frustrated was the pilot shortage. She had a limited number of birds, but she had an even more limited number of qualified people who could fly them. The Cylons kept coming and coming, and they were slowly picking off her pilots one by one.There was a soft knock on the door. She had selected this office because of its location away from the main traffic of Galactica. That way, she knew when someone bothered her, it was really important.

"Come in," she yelled without lifting her head.

"Captain."

Kara scrunched up her nose as Wipeout hesitantly entered the room. "Is this about the nuggets?" her muffled voice asked.

"Yeah, they're not ready to be put into CAP rotation."

She groaned. It had been a miracle when she discovered Wipeout's previous experience with tutoring first years in the Academy back on Picon about fifteen years back. She had immediately enlisted him to take over part of her flight instructor duties now that she had taken on the job of permanent CAG. Right now, he was dealing with the third batch of nuggets that Central Command had sent their way.

"I was really counting on you to push them through, Wipeout."

"I know, Starbuck. But they hadn't even seen your basic Viper cockpit when I got them. At least they can take off and land now."

"Isn't that enough?" she asked, finally sitting up. "Take off and land. That's all a CAP really is."

"If the Cylons don't show up. Which we know they will. Eight of the last ten CAPs have been interrupted by some sort of Cylon attack. They know we're here and they aren't happy."

Kara shook her head at him. She had always considered Wipeout one of the smarter pilots left in the Fleet. But she couldn't tell him why they weren't leaving and why they weren't surprised that the Cylons were able to keep attacking. She was surprised he hadn't figured it out on his own by now.

The Cylons had set up shop on Kobol, birthplace of the gods, and the Fleet was just floating around in the space above them. Humanity in the form of the few officers in power knew the toasters were there, but Kara couldn't tell anyone that.

"Just try to get them ready by the end of the week," Kara said, looking down at the schedule again. "There are about fifty holes I need them to close up."

"I'll try," Wipeout said, giving her a short salute before retreating behind the closed hatch.

Kara knew that she should be angry that this fraking pilot schedule was taking so long. She had a million other things to do like take her own turn flying CAP, give the Commander a report on the status of pilot morale and whether the third class of nuggets are shaping up, and convince the President that there was still reason to stay where they were in space, just to name a few.

Sighing, she shoved the papers out of the way. She had to come up with a reason why they were still in the Kobol airspace to tell President Roslin. It had to be something good enough to make her believe that they should stay on.

The President had admitted to Kara privately only a few days before that it may have been a mistake to place so much of the Fleet's future into the hands of an age-old prophecy and a drug-induced vision. Roslin wasn't faltering in her beliefs, but she was starting to become convinced that she had taken a wrong step somewhere down the line. She had told Kara that she was afraid she had sent Lee Adama to his death and admitted that it grieved her greatly if that turned out to be true.

The only reason Kara was able to keep her temper in check was the look on the President's face. The woman was visibly thrown by the idea that she had indirectly killed a man she had come to trust and care for so dearly since their whole world was destroyed.

Which is why Kara felt like she had more reason to keep up hope. Not only did she and the Old Man need Lee to return, but the President did, too. Hence the necessity of a new theory as to why they were staying on Kobol when they had neither the basic equipment nor the spiritual arrow-shaped compass to start forward on their search for Earth.

Previously she, the Old Man, and the President had gone with the theory that they were gathering intelligence from the Cylon forces who didn't know they were there. By studying them to see if the toasters would make the first move, they would understand a little more of the tactics behind the machines. The Fleet sent out several reconnaissance missions composed of flight personnel and members of the crew that kept things running.

It all went according to expectations until the second mission ended in tragedy. The Chief, the Vice President, Specialist Cally, and Crashdown were the only four to survive the crash of their Raptor. They were the only ones still alive when Kara finally came up with a way to distract the Cylons long enough to send in a rescue ship.

The justification for the risks they took was the more understanding they had of the Cylons, the easier it would be to blow them out of the sky and out of their lives. But they couldn't allow their people to die for reasons unknown to them.

So that initial reasoning was starting to wear thin as it became clear that the Cylons were not going to attack them if it wasn't in the form of retaliation. No one knew why this was, and the only person who had even a little chance of being able to explain it had been sent away on some crazy, religious pilgrimage to the hell they left behind.

Kara groaned and placed her head in her hands. She needed a new reason, and she needed it now. It couldn't just be any random reason, either. It had to be good enough to make the President look past the actual reason why no one wanted to leave Kobol. Now that the level of potential danger was steadily rising with each minute they sat dormant, Roslin would want to get them to move on. If Kara was going to convince her to keep them stationary, then she couldn't let on to why she really didn't want them moving one inch.

She had grieved for Lee Adama all her life. It had started when she realized the huge amount of pressure he had on his shoulders at the Academy. He was Commander William Adama's son and therefore expected to be on a level above all others. He had lost most of his childhood innocence and naïveté within the first week.

Then, she grieved for him silently and without notice as he lost his best friend to his little brother. Zak Adama had consumed all her thoughts and dreams since the moment she realized she was falling in love with him. And she had just shrugged off all attachments to Lee. Later she would grieve alongside him as they both dealt with the loss of Zak.

She had grieved the death of Lee himself three times. First was the day she thought Lee had been killed protecting then-Secretary Roslin's shuttle. Days later, he had come waltzing into the hangar bay, smirking and clearly very much alive. Second was the day she thought Lee had been shot out of the sky securing a new source of tylium for the Fleet. She grieved for her part in his death, thinking that nothing could get tougher than that. Then he had returned like a phoenix rising from the ashes. And she learned a whole new definition of grief.

The Lee who had been returned to her was not the Lee she had known. He was cold. He was calculating. And he blamed her for everything.

She was currently in her third round of grief for his death. The newly-altered cold, calculating Lee had left the Fleet as quickly as he came to go on some sort of prophetic mission to Caprica for President Roslin. He had felt the risk he was taking could be justified in the fact that the Fleet didn't actually need him. She had tried to convince him otherwise, but she didn't know how to talk with the changed man Lee had become.

This time she was pretty sure the grieving would be permanent.

And that was the real reason why they were still hovering around Kobol even though they knew the Cylons were right under their noses.

They wanted to give Lee a shot at being able to come back from the dead for a third time even if they all knew it wasn't likely.

Grabbing the schedule from where she had flung it minutes earlier, she penciled her own name into five of the slots that weren't filled. Double shifts weren't that foreign any idea for her. She would just place herself into as many of them as she could sneak past the Old Man's approving eye. The other empty slots would just have to stand. She was pretty sure that most of the pilots were getting used to going on CAPs without a full team.

Kara stood up and walked over to the large window in the side of the office. This was the other reason she had selected this space. If she needed a break, space and her pilots were just a few feet away to serve as a distraction. At the moment, she could see the switch being made from one patrol to the next.

Even with the pilot shortage, she was doing a good job as the CAG. Morale was high, and there hadn't been a pilot in the brig in over three days. She was a lot better at this whole leadership thing than anyone had imagined.

And she was surprised to realize how much she enjoyed.

She had always teased that only a dipstick would take the job, but somehow she had been proven wrong. Keeping a handle on the pilots of Galactica kept her grounded in reality. She hadn't pulled a typical Starbuck-type move since she had agreed to take on the CAG position permanently. She couldn't afford to risk herself when she knew for a fact that there was no one else available who could take her place.

Kara had never worked so hard as she was to make sure that the pilots she was in charge of knew what was necessary to stay alive. Lee had asked her to do that before he left. He had asked her to teach them the things he hadn't been able to, to impart her special way of working through grief, and give them the hope that one day they will be able to mourn and move on. On that day he had asked her to explain to them why he was not man enough to do it himself.

He was wrong to think that. Because her job would be impossible if he hadn't been the CAG before her.

Lee had taken this ragtag bunch of pilots and led them through the end of everything they had ever known. Not one pilot was lost to human weakness, and every single pilot had been given time to grieve. He had given them hope in all the subtle ways that she hadn't noticed until it was too late.

Her mind drifted back to the last words that he had said to her before disappearing from her life once more.

He had asked her to forgive him for abandoning her as well as the rest of the pilots.

She stared out the window at the ships Galactica was protecting. He had given her everything that she held dear, and he still wanted her forgiveness. That small glimmer of the old Lee had been bundled down deep inside of him. He might seem changed to every other person in the Fleet, but from that one comment, she knew better.

He was the same man.

She could feel the tears spring to her eyes as memories flashed through her head. "Frak," she hissed, rubbing desperately to keep them at bay. She had thought she had finally gotten past the spontaneous crying and feelings of guilt.

Another knock pulled her back to reality.

"Frak! Can't you people leave me alone?" she screamed. If this was even Wipeout coming back to tell her that the nuggets wouldn't be ready by the end of the month, let alone the week, she was going to hit something.

"Captain Thrace."

It wasn't Wipeout.

Kara smiled at Dee's quiet voice as she entered the office. She had gotten rather close with the young Petty Officer now that she was the CAG and had to do her rotations in CIC along with her normal flights.

"Is there a problem, Dee?"

"Um… the Commander sent me down here to get you. He wants you to report to his office as soon as possible."

"Couldn't you have just called to tell me?"

"He told me to come personally. It didn't sound like a request, sir."

Kara narrowed her eyes at the woman standing across from her. Dee appeared to be rather nervous, almost as if she expected a Cylon to jump out at any second to attack them. For a naturally calm person like Dualla Kaly'sel, this was completely out of the ordinary.

"The Commander said to tell you to drop everything even if you thought it couldn't wait to get done."

Kara slid the frustrating pilot schedule into a file and stood up. "All right. I get it. He doesn't want me screwing around. Fine. Let's go."

Dee nodded and opened the hatch for both of them to exit through. "He also said that you weren't to talk to anyone on our way to his office."

"This is just too weird," Kara said shaking her head. She watched as people turned to stare at the pair of them as they made their way through the ship. Stares were normal when it came to her, but the whispering and general looks of terror were new. She had been on her best behavior for weeks now so there was no reason for anyone to look at her in fear.

"Do you know what it's about, Dee?" The woman walking beside her paled slightly. "You do."

"The Old Man told me that I wasn't to say a word to you about what I knew. He said he wanted to keep this contained until we knew what it meant."

Contained? That was an odd choice of words. Kara shook her head. "Must be big if everyone seems to know about it. At least, that's what I take all the staring and whispering to mean. Makes me wonder why everyone can know about it but I'm not allowed to be told one little thing."

"Did you ever wonder if maybe having your office so far out of the way cuts you off from most of the ship?" Dee asked abruptly.

Kara glanced at her out of the corner of her eye in confusion. "I don't know what you mean."

"Well, you're pretty far from the hangar bay and from the CIC. Things go on that take a while to filter down to where you are. And lately you've been holing yourself up in that office every free moment you have. It cuts you off."

"Something happened," Kara whispered, her eyes going wide. "Something big happened, didn't it?"

Dee just gave her a look before stopping in front of a very familiar hatch. Before either one could knock, the door swung open. "Starbuck," Crashdown said with a leering smile. "Guess your pilot shortage problem is not going to be so bad now, huh?"

Kara glanced at Dee who just gave her another look before she turned to Crashdown to tell him he was wanted down in the hangar. Kara herself wasn't sure how to respond to his comment so she just smirked. Obviously that was the right decision because Crashdown just laughed and walked away, satisfied with the little exchange they had.

"What was that about?" Kara asked before realizing. "Oh. That's right. You're probably not allowed to tell me. It's super secret day in the Fleet."

"Crashdown was in the hangar bay when… well… he was in the hangar bay. I think I can tell you that without getting into trouble." Dee held her hand out to motion Kara into the room. "You should go inside. I have to get back to CIC."

Kara nodded and stepped into the Commander's office. "What the frak is going on?" she asked, staring at where Dee still stood in the hallway as the hatch closed.

"You haven't heard," William Adama said, standing up from behind his desk and walking over to where she stood.

"Well, no. I've been in my office, and it seems like Dee was bullied into only giving me shady glimpses into why I was so urgently needed to report here."

"I told her to not say a word on the off chance that you hadn't heard. I didn't want this to become traumatic if you still didn't know." He took a seat on the couch and motioned for her to join him. "In fact, I figured you hadn't heard since you didn't show up yourself in sickbay."

"Was there an accident?" Kara threw her hands up in the air. "Frak me! I don't have enough pilots as it is. I can't deal with losing any more."

"Kara. It's not that." The man she had considered like a father for as long as she could remember gave her a look that she couldn't read. It was full of hope and yet teaming with fear. It reminded her of Lee. He had always given her that look before she did something justifiably crazy in the air or on the ground. She had never seen it on William Adama's face before, though.

The commander gave her a small smile before taking a deep breath. "I wish I knew how to tell you this gently."

"Just spit it out. I've been through hell at least ten times in my life. Nothing you can say will take me by surprise."

"It's Lee. He's back."

The words made her whole body freeze in a sudden, overwhelming sense of dread combined with ecstatic happiness. Before she knew what was happening, she felt light-headed and her knees buckled out from under her. She heard Adama call her name as her body slid awkwardly to the floor.

* * *

Lee stared silently through the open hatch of his father's office. He had expected her to be here. He had even expected her to be in this current state of unconsciousness. After the ninth hour of testing was complete, his father had told him what had happened when Kara found out he had come back to the Fleet. 

But still, the sight of her so vulnerable and, frankly, so accessible wasn't something he could have ever prepared for. Kara Thrace didn't do vulnerable and accessible.

He shut the hatch behind him, only wincing slightly when it clicked loudly. She hadn't woken up, though, by the looks of it. Silently, he took a seat in the chair next to her. He really didn't even know why he was here. They hadn't parted on good terms. Hell, their relationship had never really been on good terms in all the years they had known each other. They were way too frakked up for that.

Even though his eyes stayed trained intently on her peaceful face, he noted that he was still in position to occasionally glance at the mirror that was just visible behind her. He needed to watch the door in case those Marines he had so 'calmly' slipped away from actually had enough intelligence to figure out that this was where he went. They really hadn't appreciated when he physically took all of his guards out without any warning. Plus, he was pretty sure he had broken the nose of that one Marine who wouldn't let go of his arm.

It wasn't like he was hiding somewhere on the ship. If he knew the Fleet, gossip had been circulating about the way he and Kara parted company. People would either expect him to come here first or expect him to keep far, far away from where she was. Considering he had taken the option which made him easy to locate, he was pretty sure he didn't have much time.

It was a little of both and neither one at the same time, he decided finally. He didn't come here first. He had checked on the location of Dr. Gaius Baltar, the resident genius and traitor to the human race. Then he had made sure that the ship was up to date on all the Cylon models previously identified. Once he was sure the ship was secure, then he came here to Kara's side. So obviously, he wasn't staying far, far away either. That large amount of distance would only come in handy if she were to wake up. While she was sleeping, it didn't matter how close he got.

He remembered the words she had said to him when he finally returned from his imprisonment by the Cylons. He had been brutal to her, bordering on savage. He had screamed that his coldness was what she wanted and practically forced himself on her. And it disgusted him to know that he had been right. She had responded in a way she never would have if he hadn't treated her like an object.

But, in the end, something had made her pull back and point out that she had always thought he would be different than the others. She had said that when this mess of a world they lived in had finally calmed down, she wanted to hold nothing back when it came to him. She wanted to do that because he was different to her.

Gods. That had really thrown him.

It hurt him to even think about what she had been saying. Because if he didn't know better, it sounded an awful lot like an open admission of love. And Starbuck didn't do that kind of thing.

Her words stuck with him, though. All the way to Caprica, he found the emotional walls he had learned to build while being tortured by the Cylons slowly erode away. She had frakked with his mind and his life once more. It seemed to be her favorite hobby, even more so than triad.

She had been unknowingly controlling him for so long that it was hard to imagine what he would have done if he really had died on Caprica. Would he even be able to exist in the afterlife if she wasn't there to make his life hard?

Lee shook his head, trying to keep those unwelcome thoughts at bay, and reached out to take her hand. He worried about the fact that she hadn't woken up yet. It shouldn't have been that large of a shock even if she had decided to give him up for dead the second he left the Fleet. The way that they had left things between them, he wouldn't be surprised to hear that she had pleaded with his father and the President to get the Fleet away from Cylon-infested Kobol.

All that had led him to wonder why she was taking such a long, unscheduled nap. Ignoring the fact that it really wasn't his job to make sure that the pilots on Galactica were doing all right now that he wasn't the CAG, he still found himself trying to weed some information out of Doc Cottle earlier without the old man realizing that he was doing it. Turns out Kara had been running herself ragged, taking on the CAG position, teaching nuggets how to not die, and still leading her pilots in the sky as the best pilot humanity had.

A tiny voice in his head reminded him that he needed to get back to Medical because he was probably just as exhausted as the woman in front of him. And he didn't have the luxury of passing out and not waking up for days.

The med team wasn't done testing him in order to make the Fleet feel secure with his sudden reappearance. The transmitter he had had implanted at the base of his neck had proven accurate in signaling immediately that he was the real Lee Adama. They had still swarmed him with a squadron of Marines when he stepped out of the Cylon ship with Helo at his side. But that was really only precaution.

At least that's what President Roslin told him. Lee was pretty sure she was lying. He wasn't sure when she had started to pick up that nasty habit of withholding truth that his father seemed to excel in.

He wasn't sure when the schism between the President and her former military advisor had been created, either. But it was there. She either didn't trust him or felt guilty for some unknown reason.

He heard shuffling outside the door, but there was neither a knock nor a loud bang as the Marines busted down the hatch. Soon the noise went away.

Lee knew he was delaying the inevitable by being here. They would need him to start explaining what had happened on Caprica and how he had found Lieutenant Agathon. Colonel Tigh had made a joke that he was surprised that Lee hadn't already spouted out all the information considering how efficient and blunt he had become these days.

The XO was right. He had become rather cold when it came to most aspects of his life. Being tortured by Cylons in every way imaginable would do that to a person.

If he was really being honest, he liked the changes he saw in himself. He was a better pilot and a better officer because of his newfound ability to detach from the emotional side of his life. It was what everyone had always told him he needed to strive for.

Kara shifted lightly in her slip, and he felt her hand tighten around his. Holding his breath, he watched her face for a moment, but she didn't stir.

He knew that he should pull himself away from her side and do his job. The Fleet needed the information he had obtained on Caprica.

Still, he felt himself settle down into the chair. He wanted to indulge his emotional side just this once. After that he would let himself drift back to the reality of his life.

He smiled for the first time in months as he watched Kara nuzzle his hand against her cheek.

* * *

Kara opened her eyes slowly and tried to focus them as best she could. William Adama's words rang through her head. Lee was back. She didn't know what that was supposed to mean or what it was supposed to make her feel. Relieved. Guilty. Happy. Confused. All of those were options. 

She felt a slight pressure on her left hand and without looking she realized that someone was sitting next to her holding it. Her mind ran through the options of who it could be. It only saddened her slightly when the answer was only one.

The Old Man must be worried sick if he was sitting by her bedside. She couldn't remember the last time she had fainted in his presence. In fact she was pretty sure she had never done it before.

Closing her eyes for a moment to steady herself, she smirked. "Sorry about that, sir."

"It's no problem. And you don't have to call me sir, Captain Starbuck, sir."

She bolted upright and wrenched her hand away from the man sitting next to her. "No. There's no way. You're supposed to be dead."

"Well, I'm not. But you can kill me if it would make your world a little more sound."

She hesitantly reached out to touch his cheek. When she felt the warmth of his skin against hers, she gasped. "Helo?"

"Yeah, Kara. It's me."

"They told me you died."

"So I hear. I didn't."

Her mind was racing, trying to process what was going on. Adama had told her that Lee was back, hadn't he? He had said 'Lee's back'. She remembered that clearly. But what if it had only been wishful thinking? Maybe he had said Helo was back and she just wanted it to be Lee. Gods. What did that say about her? She would rather have a man who hates her come back from the dead than one of her best friends on Galactica.

"Say something."

Her eyes darted back to stare at him. "I don't understand."

Helo smiled and moved to sit down next to her on the couch. "You never really did."

"You're alive?"

"I'm alive."

"And on Galactica?"

"And on Galactica."

"How?"

"The Commander's son rescued me."

Kara's eyes went wide. She hadn't misheard. The Old Man had said Lee was back.

Helo wondered for a moment if maybe he should mention to Starbuck that when he entered the Commander's quarters to see her, Apollo had been sitting by her side, holding her hand and staring at her intently. If he didn't know any better, Helo would have guessed the Captain was wishing that Kara would wake up and find him there. There was a whole lot of history floating around that one little moment, and he had immediately felt like he was intruding on something he shouldn't be privy to. He contemplated if telling her might help ease the pain he could see in her eyes.

Knowing Starbuck, that wouldn't be an easy task. She had a lot of pain bottled up inside. And now probably was not the time to cross that conversational hurdle either. It would be better just to stick to the simple facts of what had happened. "He found us on Caprica."

"Us?"

"I…" Helo cleared his throat and bit his lip in a sign of nervousness. "Gods. I didn't want to get into this right away."

"You're going to have to tell me sooner or later."

"I was with Sharon."

Kara's face went hard. "Sharon doesn't exist anymore, Karl."

"I know."

"Did Lee shoot her?"

"No. Somehow she knew he was coming even before he got to us. She simply said that she had taken me as far as she could and then I got a killer left hook to the jaw. The next thing I know, Apollo is trying to get me to wake up." Helo gave her a funny look. "Why would you think he would shoot her?"

"He shot the Cylon that was on board Galactica five times point blank." She saw Helo pale and realized that no one must have told him how Sharon had died. "Didn't he tell you?"

"Attention, Galactica. Prepare for FTL jump in five, four, three, two, one. Jump."

The room shifted violently for a few seconds before the pressure evened out. "We just left Kobol behind," Kara said, completely in shock.

"The orders came in from the President a few minutes ago. Seems like you and the Old Man didn't do such a good job convincing her that the Fleet needed to stay. Roslin saw right through that."

Kara nodded. "Apollo's back on board so what reason is there to stay, right?"

"Personally, I think that she was waiting for him to return as much as you two were. I mean, we were only in sickbay for a few minutes when she came running in, demanding to see Captain Apollo. Captain Apollo! Can you believe she actually calls him that?"

"She thinks it makes him sound like a hero." When Helo gave her a strange look, she shrugged. "Lee told me that once."

"He is a hero. The President was telling me all he's done for the Fleet in the past year."

"Including ridding the whole Fleet of Cylon moles. Speaking of which, you never explained why you were with that Cylon when he found you. And you seem really well adjusted to the idea that Sharon Valerii is actually a toaster. Makes me wonder how long you've known."

"Gods, Kara. Why don't you just accuse me of being in league with the toasters while we're having an inquisition?"

She looked at him sheepishly. "Sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

"I know. Which is why I'm going to answer your accusation and not deck you." He sighed, letting out his breath in one long burst. "I figured it out within the first six weeks of being stranded on Caprica. It took me a while because there were things… situations… events… whatever… blinding me to her true nature. And by the time I put two and two together, it was too late."

"Too late?"

"She was pregnant with my child. Still is."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I most of the time."

They sat in silence, both lost in their thoughts, while sounds of the frantic activity in the corridors filtered into the room. Kara knew she should be focusing on the idea of a Cylon who could get pregnant and was in fact pregnant with the child of the man sitting in front of her. But she couldn't focus on that. Instead, she found herself wondering why Helo was the one at her bedside when she woke up and not either one of the Adamas. Not that she wasn't happy to see him. He had always been the only one on board Galactica besides Adama himself who understood her.

"You're wondering where they are."

"Huh?" she said, turning to look at him.

"You want to know why I'm here and they're not. I can understand that. Commander Adama is still trying to sift through all the information that Apollo and I brought back to the Fleet. He's down in the CIC."

"And Lee?"

"He…" Helo's eyes drifted from hers to a point just above her head. The truth wasn't going to help her. Knowing that Lee had been here and left before she had time to wake up wouldn't make her feel any better. And telling her that Lee's last words that he had whispered as he paused at the hatch without turning around to face him or Kara? Not a good idea. Lee had practically begged Helo to watch out for her as if Lee himself wouldn't be around to do so.

Telling her that would definitely not do any good.

But not telling her? That was still going to hurt at least a little bit. So much for trying to ease her pain. "He didn't want to see you, Kara."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry. I don't really know why."

"I do," she said, sliding off the couch and onto her feet. "You've missed a lot while you've been on your little Caprican holiday."

"Yeah. I guess I did." Helo stood up and grabbed her arm as she wavered a little. "Are you sure you should be moving around this soon?"

She glared at him and ripped her arm away. "I just fainted. It's not like someone shot me."

"You're really frakked up if you can't even let someone help you when you need it."

"So everyone seems to tell me. But you know what? It's been working out just fine for me all my life. And at least I don't make stupid mistakes by offering my help when it's not needed."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Dr. Baltar." She crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at him. "Was giving up your seat on that Raptor worth it? Your life for the life of the man who took away humanity's right to live. Not that good of a bargain in retrospect."

"Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"At the first sign of weakness, you're pushing me away. Why do you do that?"

"I don't need to lean on anyone. I can take care of myself."

"Sure you can, Thrace. Tell you what. You can just take care of yourself all the way down to the CIC. The Commander wants to see the flight schedule for the coming week."

"Frak. It's not finished."

"I would offer to help, but I think you'd kill me."

She sent a cool glare his way while brushing past him to step out into the corridor. She had missed almost everything about him, but this uncanny ability to see past her defenses? It had been refreshing to not have that around. She felt her heart freeze for a second. That thought was frakked up even by her own standards. Of course she hadn't felt refreshed to have him gone.

"Oh, Starbuck!"

"What?" she said, turning around to glare at him some more. She was silently happy he had called out to her, though. It kept her from having to figure out where her frakked up thoughts came from.

"The Commander wanted me to tell you that Apollo and I should be flight ready in a few days so you can add us to that schedule."

"Gods. You're already that close to being free from medical? How long was I passed out?"

"Only thirteen hours. Have you even slept at all in the past few days?"

"Try the past few weeks. Things aren't as fun as they used to be."

Helo walked over to stand in front of her. "They rushed us through the tests, Kara. It seems like you're not the only one worried about the pilot shortage."

"What tests did they put you through?"

"The usual physical from Doc Cottle. And they're currently running our blood samples through that Cylon detection machine Dr. Baltar created for a second time." Helo smirked at her. "Looks like there was at least one good thing resulting from my noble sacrifice."

"Cute."

"We passed the first test, in case you wanted to know. I'm one hundred percent toaster free."

"Yeah. You left the little missus behind with your bun in--"

Kara's words were choked back as Helo shot forward and clamped her mouth tightly with his hand. "Gods, Starbuck! Would you keep your mouth shut for once?"

She bit his hand lightly and he pulled it away in pain. "Don't come near my mouth unless you want to be bit."

Helo glared at her and started backing away. "Just keep your mouth shut."

"Yeah, yeah."

She made it halfway down the corridor before she heard him calling her name. Twisting so that she was walking backwards, she threw up her hands. "Have to get in one last dig?"

"You're a really good CAG, Kara." He gave her a small smile before turning and walking away.

She was left, staring at the spot he had been standing in. What the frak was that supposed to mean?

Shaking her head, she tried to desperately kill her sudden desire to faint again and waste away another thirteen hours. Avoidance was always her defense mechanism

Hot Dog breezed past her at a full-on run, killing all thoughts of avoidance.

"Slow down," she yelled.

"Can't!" he yelled back at her as he continued to race down the corridor. "I'm late for my CAP, and the CAG will have my ass if she finds out. Though she should probably thank me considering I'm pulling a double without even being asked or warned!"

His CAP? That made no sense. Hot Dog wasn't schedule to fly until after she had returned from her own assigned flight. And flying a double? She definitely hadn't scheduled that.

Suddenly it occurred to her what passing out for over half a day really meant.

"Frak!" she yelled and started to run down to the hangar bay.

She had missed her patrol, and Hot Dog must have flown it for her. She couldn't let him do two shifts in a row without a wingman, though. She would just have to shove her guilt and dark thoughts to the side until she got back.

Fraking pilot shortage.

* * *

"CAG to the Hangar Bay. Repeat, Captain Thrace to the Hangar Bay." 

"Frak you! I'm coming," Kara yelled as she ran down the stairs that led to the back entrance of the main hangar. She had been summoned out of the first good sleep she had gotten in as long as she could remember. The past few weeks had been hell, what with the ever present pilot shortage and the fact that she still wasn't clear what had gone down on Caprica since the Cylons destroyed its beauty. One could say she was passively avoiding both issues.

Bursting onto the mass chaos that was the hangar bay, her eyes landed on Cally. "Specialist! What the frak is going on?"

"Sir, the CAP ran into a squadron of Cylon Raiders. The alert fighters were launched, but the Raiders were decimated by the time they got to the scene."

"Then, what's the problem?"

"It's Apollo, sir. He took them all on himself without any back-up besides the Raptor he was flying with. And he had no orders from Galactica to do so. In fact, the Commander repeatedly told him to stand down to no avail."

Kara's eyes suddenly landed on the Mark VII that had always been assigned to Lee. It was a charred mess with smoke erupting from multiple areas. The cockpit window was cracked down the front, and the left wing had a definite bend to it that would keep any pilot from flying the ship in anything more than an erratic line.

She turned to look at Cally. The young girl looked like she could see right through Kara's brave front as the worry for Lee hit her like a brick wall. Doing her best to keep up the act regardless, Kara turned away from Cally's gaze and asked nonchalantly, "Apollo landed that thing?"

"He scorched up most of the deck, sir."

"Where is he now?" Kara asked. It was her duty as CAG to reprimand any pilot who caused such unnecessary damage to the structure of Galactica. It also happened to be one of her favorite things to do. And it was an excuse for her to see how banged up Lee was considering his Viper had seen better days.

"They took him down to medical bay. He seemed pretty banged up." Cally paled and corrected herself. "Pretty banged up but very much still alive, sir."

Yelling at Lee would have to wait then, Kara decided. Giving Cally a small nod of dismissal, she stepped into the chaos and took a good look at what was going on around her. "Someone put out those fires, now! We need to save that ship! We can't just go and ask the toasters if they can spare some parts so we can build a new one, now can we? "

* * *

Kara spent the next two hours in which she should have been resting cooling off the wreckage and beginning the repairs on the Mark VII. It was the best Viper they have, and the Fleet desperately needed it to be in the air. Plus, it kept her mind off why exactly Lee would do something as stupid as taking on a full squadron of Cylons by himself. 

"Captain Thrace."

Her hand stopped in mid-air as Helo's voice rang right through the ship and straight into her ear. She really hated the way all the metal amplified sound. "I'm busy. What do you need?"

"I need you to get out from underneath that Viper and talk to me, Kara," he hissed.

She wheeled herself out and stood up, ignoring the hand he offered. "I do not have time."

"You assigned Apollo to the CAP by himself."

"Yes, I did. In case you haven't noticed, we don't have the personnel to insure wingmen are present on every launch."

"I thought you knew better than that."

Kara stared at Helo before motioning for him to follow her. She led him to a vacant equipment locker and waited until the hatch clicked closed before laying into him. "Listen up, Lieutenant. I am the CAG now. You cannot talk to me like that in the middle of the hangar bay. I am your superior. Get it in your head."

"I know you're my superior, Captain, sir, but you're also my friend."

"I am no longer your friend. I am your CAG."

"All business when it comes to me, aren't we?"

She glared at him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. It's just you seem to have your head on straight when it comes to me. But when it comes to Apollo, you've completely blinded yourself."

"Explain yourself before I throw you into the brig for subordination."

"You have a job to do that you're not getting done. You are in charge of all the pilots left in the world."

"I think that I'm getting my job done just fine, Helo." She was tempted to remind him that there hadn't been one complaint filed against her. Lee had had two complaints on his record in the first week, and the previous CAG before Apollo had averaged five complaints a week. She was doing good.

"Have you even spoken to Apollo since he came back on board?"

She felt her face blush as she realized she hadn't been as subtle in her avoidance as she had hoped. Plus, the fact that she knew this conversation was less about her effectiveness as CAG and more about her ineffectiveness at dealing with her issues didn't help. "There hasn't been time. I've been fielding the gossip and rumors about your return. There's a pilot shortage to deal with. And he's been on opposite shifts than me."

"You create the pilot schedule yourself. Face it. You're avoiding him, and no one really knows why."

She inched in close to him and glared up at where he stood. "I am only going to say this once. I am not having this conversation with you."

"You need to do your job," he repeated, staring her down.

"I am doing my job."

"You're in denial. Because there's a major problem with one of your top pilots that you seem to be blinded to."

"There's no problem with Apollo. I would know."

"Don't play the 'I've-known-him-for-years' card. You don't avoid a man you've known for years if there's no problem there." Helo sighed and backed up a step, holding his hands up in a kind of surrender. "I was in that Raptor out there. And I was alone with him on Caprica for a week. I saw it with my own eyes. It's clear how strange he's acting even to me, someone who hasn't known him for years."

"He's fine. We all have issues we have to work through."

"Issues like that can't just be worked out on your own."

"This conversation is over, Lieutenant."

Kara moved to walk past him. Before she could even register it, she felt him physically grab her shoulders and pushed her back into one of the storage lockers. "You're the CAG and you have a fraking suicidal pilot. It is your job to discover these things. So shut the frak up and deal with it, Thrace!" Turning on heel, he left her by herself in the empty equipment locker.

His words rang through her head. Lee wasn't suicidal. He had done everything in his power to keep the Fleet safe by taking on those Raiders before they could cause any sort of permanent damage.

A voice in the back of her head pointed out that he didn't have to engage them. The alert fighters would have been with him in a matter of minutes, and together they could have easily eliminated the threat. He had chosen to take them on himself for some important reason that she wasn't privy to.

And therein lay the problem. She wasn't privy to it because she didn't want to be. She had closed off almost all signs that Lee mattered to her. In her head, she knew that there was a problem somewhere festered deep inside of him, but she couldn't find the courage to face it. She was too afraid he would cut her to the core like he had done the day before he ran away to Caprica.

Fear wasn't something she was used to. Therefore, it was really never something she had mastered. Every time fear had come up in her heart, she just drew her arm back and gave it one of her famous punches. Metaphorically, of course.

"But I've never been one to turn down some good, old-fashioned ass-kicking," she muttered to herself as she stepped outside the equipment locker. "And if this is going to go how I think it will, it won't just be metaphorical."

She stormed through the corridors as she made her way from the hangar area to the sickbay. People practically ran to avoid the path of destructive looks and muttered cusses that she left behind. In more than one case, she heard them whisper something about the CAG and Apollo's little stunt. She even thought she heard Crashdown mention that he was pretty sure that Starbuck would kill a man who was already injured and lying in sickbay if her temper got the better of her.

"Damn right I'll kill him if he's actually stupid enough to want to die," she hissed at no one in particular as she entered the small cramped quarters of sickbay. She picked up the usual mound of paperwork that the XO had left for her with the Doc. It would have to wait until she fixed this problem with Lee.

So maybe she'd get to it in twenty years. Ten if she was lucky and Lee decided not to play the guilt card.

There was the gentle flow of activity throughout the medical area which was common during the downtime between Cylon attacks. Starbuck grabbed the first medic she could get her hands on, even though he looked all of five years old, and demanded to know where Apollo had been taken. The medic's sputtered answer led her to a curtained-in area.

"Apollo, you and I have to talk," she said firmly as she whipped the piece of canvas back.

The bed was empty.

"He died."

Kara turned to stare at the man who had addressed her in shock. "What did you just say?"

"The man they brought in. He had some pretty bad internal injuries. He died about half an hour ago." The man stared at her intently before beginning to laugh. "I'm sorry. Your face! It's priceless."

"Who the frak are you?"

"I'm Conner McMurray. The Fleet wants me to train to be a Viper pilot. Is he your boyfriend or husband or something?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, choosing to ignore his question for the moment. "And what are you doing in sickbay?"

"Nasty little mishap on the shuttle over here to start my Viper training. Got my ankle twisted pretty bad."

Suddenly realizing taking down this little shit was definitely in her jurisdiction, Kara continued to stare at him as she walked over to stand next to his bed. "So, they sent you over here to be a nugget?"

"I know. Not everyone can be a Viper pilot. You have to be the best of the best." He placed his hands behind his head while giving her a quick once over. It took all of Kara's control not to hit him on the spot. "It must be hard, being a woman on this ship, surrounded by so many pilots who keep your life safe. I bet you wish you could have a larger part in keeping humanity free."

Kara found herself already growing tired of playing with this kid. If she wasn't putting off talking with Lee, she would have left the second she realized he wasn't there. "I heard there's one female pilot who could knock the pants off of any male pilot around."

"You talking about Starbuck? I don't think she really exists. Urban legend mostly to give the woman of the Fleet hope that they too could someday amount to something. A healthy lie to keep them happy."

Kara's eyes fell onto the stack of papers she still clutched in her hand. She ripped one page in half, hoping it wasn't too important, and scrawled something on it quickly. "Take this to the first shuttle you can find. Go back to whatever ship you came from because you're not getting into my training program. I wrote down a few names of the crew on board if you wanted to enlist that way, but you're not going to be a pilot for me."

Conner read the name on the paper. "Captain Kara Thrace. Who do you think you are to treat me like this?"

"I'm the CAG, and I have certain standards. And I don't take people like you into my Fleet." She rolled her eyes as she stood up. "And you can call me Starbuck."

"She exists?"

"Frak yeah, I do," she said with a wink. But she quickly sobered from her sarcastic smirk. She hadn't forgotten what this kid had done to her nerves when she first pulled back the curtain. No one got away with that. "And just in case you have some plaguing guilt that your male chauvinist bullshit got you rejected from my program, I just want you to know that I had already decided to get you the frak off my ship way before that. The man you told me was dead-" She paused as she felt her voice falter slightly. "He was the previous CAG and the best damn Viper pilot the Fleet has right now. He also happens to be my best friend. And today while you were busy spraining your ankle, he took down a whole squadron of Cylons so that your ship wasn't blown out of the air. And that is why he made Viper and you never will."

Kara turned on heel, smirking, slightly and went up to the first medic she could find. "That kid in that room? I want him off of Galactica now."

The medic nodded. The people in medical had gotten used to her requests and commends since becoming CAG. She seemed to command a certain air of authority without even trying. She thanked her standoffishly tough demeanor for that little gift.

"Will you please tell me where they've taken Captain Lee Adama?" she asked, figuring that one command was enough for the day. Sometimes being polite Kara got better results than being obstinate Starbuck.

"He was pretty banged up, sir," the medic explained. "We needed him to go clean up a little before we could stitch up some of the more severe abrasions."

Okay, so he was in the head and he really wasn't that badly hurt. Maybe she could come back later when it was more convenient.

She immediately scolded herself from trying to avoid her responsibilities and left sickbay, stopping for a few moments to leer once more at the stupid young kid trying to deal with his sudden rejection.

She slowly pushed open the door to the head that was across the hall from sickbay and looked around. If he wasn't here, then she wouldn't feel guilty for not having the talk Helo seemed to think was desperately needed. "Anyone here?"

No one answered. It made sense. For as long as she knew him, Lee took quick showers. He said there was something better he could be doing than standing around under the spray of the water. She, on the other hand, would kill to have the luxury of a shower longer than five minutes. It had been almost two years.

Her heart stung at the distant recollection of a time where the length of a shower was among her worries. She really missed being that innocent and naïve.

Wandering over to one of the mirrors absentmindedly, she checked her reflection. It seemed looking like the latest piece of sky road kill was a requirement when you were the CAG. Her memory went back to all the times that she had teasingly asked Lee if he had forgotten how to use a razor.

Gods, she really wished that Lee hadn't made her miss her nap by killing all those Cylons.

"Now that's warped logic," she whispered, rubbing her temples.

A movement in the mirror caught her eye, and she squinted to see what it was.

What it was caused her eyes to open wide as she realized that she had been wrong. She wasn't alone in the head. And now she couldn't tear her eyes away from the scene reflecting back at her. Usually stuff like this only happened in the wild recesses of her mind.

Her mind shifted back to memories of old times like it had been doing from practically the first day he stepped foot on Galactica.

Damn. She really missed the constant satisfaction given to her from teasing Lee continually about his scrawny body throughout Academy and therefore labeling him with a rather ironic call sign. That little branding had caused him to turn into the fine male specimen currently showering away the dried blood under her watchful eye.

She wished she could just scream a big 'you're welcome' at all the ladies in the Fleet and take in their eternal gratitude for what she had done to help create this piece of visual eye candy.

"You're staring, Thrace," she whispered to herself as she took in the way the water seemed to bead against his skin as the shower poured down. She had seen Lee showering too many times to count, but each time it had always taken all her strength to keep from staring. There weren't many pretty sights left in the world, but this was definitely one of them.

She found herself wondering why he never took his dogtags off as she continued to take in the sight of him. Everyone else did it for fear that these precious pieces of metal would rust if they were exposed to water too much. Well, everyone else except for her. She never took her dogtags off, either, but that was for a good reason. A reason involving a lot of guilt and not too much self-pity.

The tags rattled slightly as he punched the dial that stopped the water from raining down, pulling her out of her little daydream. She couldn't get herself to stop staring, though, as he pulled a towel off a nearby shelf and threw it around his waist, tying it loosely. "How long have you been here?" he asked without hesitation as he stepped outside the showers.

He hadn't even looked her way once. How the frak did he know she was there?

"Just got here," she said.

"Liar. You came in over five minutes ago. Been at that mirror the whole time. Must have been something mighty interesting in it." He pulled a towel off the sink and ran it through his hair. It wiped off a lot of the leftover wetness but did nothing to get rid of the know-it-all smirk on his face.

"And you knew I was here for all that time, and yet you kept right on showering without saying a word," she said with a slight smirk and a raise of the eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"It means that you and I only enjoy each other's company when we think the other person isn't watching. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the Doc so he can stitch me up."

Any sign of emotion drifted off Lee's face. The same was true for Kara. This wasn't the time for them to start talking about what was going on between them. She had a job to do.

His words of excuse had reminded her why she was here in the first place. It also reminded her how much she had lost in the past few months when it came to him. They had just had a moment where things felt like they could be back to normal someday if only they just kept talking. But she knew that things couldn't go back to normal. Not if Helo was right about Lee. And not if Lee still blamed her for the way his life had taken a turn for the worse.

"I wanted to talk to you about what happened today."

"A little heart-to-heart between friends? How nice of you to think of it, Starbuck."

"This is more like a fist-to-jaw between a CAG and her frustrating Viper pilot. So put some pants on and come see me in my office. We're going to do this properly, Adama."

"Doc Cottle says I need to report back to medical. My father wouldn't like it to hear his CAG made an injured pilot skip out on important medical attention required of him."

"When has anyone adhered so strictly to the Doc's instructions? You just have a few cuts on your body. I've seen you work through a hell of a lot worse. So I think you could hold off the stitches for a little bit. This is important."

Lee shook his head and made his way out the door. "A real CAG wouldn't let her pilot skip out on important medical attention. Sometimes I wonder why everyone seems to think you're the best CAG in the history of CAGs."

And Kara suddenly felt her last little bit of patience go out the window. These digging insults were starting to really make her life hard. And she was getting tired of the constant guilt and sadness trying to talk to him caused. It was time to put a stop to it.

Because if it didn't stop, she was pretty sure she would be the next person Helo would suspect of contemplating death over life in this frakked up world.

Ignoring the fact that Lee was probably bruised pretty badly along with being cut up, she grabbed his left wrist, twisted it behind his back, and shoved him up against the metal corridor wall as hard as she could. She pushed their combined hands into his kidneys and hissed, "I will not tolerate your disrespect."

"You realize if you break my arm, I really will have to go to see the Doc." Lee was struggling against her, but it was obvious to both of them that he wasn't really trying to get free.

"And you realize that if I wanted to break your arm, it would be broken by now."

"Let me go, Captain, before my towel falls and the whole hall gets a show."

She debated it a minute before releasing his arm slowly and watched as he turned around to face her. The unconscious rubbing of his reddened wrist didn't go unnoticed. She hoped it left a mark. "My office. Ten minutes. They should give you plenty of time to be sewn up."

He just stared at her as she walked down the corridor, presumably to her office to wait. He didn't know what was so important that she hadn't wanted to wait until he was done with medical. The debriefing on his little stunt in the air had given the Fleet all the basic facts of the incident. She wouldn't want to know anymore than that.

And there was no way she was concerned for what he had done, what he had risked. There had been a massive gap between the two of them from the moment he had escaped from the Cylons. She didn't seem willing to work to cross it.

Then again, he hadn't been giving her much to work with lately.

"Nice towel," Racetrack said with a wink as she passed where he still stood in the middle of the hall. "My vote is definitely for that as the new pilot uniform."

"Come on!" Lee yelled back with a laugh. "Can you really imagine Hot Dog in this?"

He watched her shake her head and laugh off the joke as she kept on walking. It felt good to be joking and not constantly caring about the job he had to do. He had lost most of his responsibilities on Galactica when he went missing and was presumed dead. He never realized how burdened with that he had been. A simple joke wasn't a luxury he indulged in most of the time.

He tried to ignore the fact that he didn't really want to joke most of the time. The memories of what the Cylons had done to him, the things they had said to him, the solid reasoning behind why they wanted him. It still brought a chill to his bones.

But he didn't have time to deal with the pain he had been caused right now. In the world he lived in, there was never enough time. And at the moment, he now only had eight minutes to get stitches and pain killers and clothes before going to meet Kara in her out of the way office.

Maybe this time he would be able to keep control of his temper. Maybe he wouldn't make the shift into someone that he knew scared Kara Thrace to death. It seemed like every time he saw her, his whole persona tended to become rather dark and accusatory.

"Frak," he muttered, stepping into sickbay and ignoring the secretive glances of most of the female staff.

He was nervous to talk to Kara for the first time in months. There were things he knew that he didn't want to tell her. And if she figured that out and demanded he do just that, it wouldn't be pretty. There was a reason why they hadn't interacted with one another since he had returned.

Sometimes it was just too hard to look at her and remember.

* * *

Kara was staring out the window of her office when there was a soft knock on the door. She didn't even break her concentration as she watched Colonial One get refueled. The process was fascinating. Plus only certain things could break her focus when she didn't want them to. And she knew for a fact this wasn't Lee at the door so there was no need to turn her attention away from the sight in front of her. 

No. It definitely wasn't him she decided as there was a second knock. There was no way he would follow her demand and show up within ten minutes. Even if he did, he would just burst in after the required first polite knock.

"Captain?"

Kara smiled at the sound of Specialist Cally's voice and turned to look at her. "Did you need something? Or maybe you're just here to yell at me again about how I treat my bird?"

Cally blushed. "I told you that I just got caught up in the moment. It's a great honor for the Chief to give me sole control over keeping the CAG's Viper in top flying condition, especially now that they're letting you fly the Mark VII."

"Yeah. I have to talk to someone about that. It's Apollo's ship, Cally. We're going to have to give it up now that he's back."

"Well considering he almost destroyed it today because you let him have his little walk down memory lane, I don't think that will be a problem. But if it's repairable, I want to take that responsibility I was given as seriously as I can."

"I understand that completely. How are you doing by the way?"

The young Specialist unconsciously held her right arm in the exact place it had been broken when her shuttle crashed down on Caprica. That little injury had kept Cally out of the repair pits for weeks. It hadn't helped the strain placed on the pilots when one of the best mechanics couldn't help them keep their ships in the air.

"Good. My arm is fine now. I mean, sometimes it hurts, but most of the time I can just work through it."

"If it gets too much, you just take a break. Everyone will understand. You're still adjusting to what happened to you on Kobol."

"It wasn't all bad," Cally said defensively.

"A little unintended vacation with a few of the Fleet's eligible bachelors?" Kara teased. She had always figured that Cally had had a crush on the Chief, but the young woman would never admit to it. When Cally had been carted to sickbay via a gurney after being rescued from the crash site on Kobol, it was plan to see that the girl was infatuated with the Chief. She kept asking him if he had checked to make sure everyone else was all right. Obviously she was concerned that the Chief might take the whole situation a little hard because he had asked for her to be assigned to the mission. She didn't want him focusing only on what happened to her.

Kara was pretty sure he was the one who requested Cally's presence on the mission in the first place. Otherwise, why would she have been on a Raptor headed to the birthplace of the gods?

"All right. If you're not here to scold me, what brings you to my office?"

"Well, I know that technically I shouldn't be coming to you for advice and that you really aren't obligated to hear my problem but I really don't think the Chief would appreciate what I'm asking, all things considered. He's still trying to deal with what happened."

Cally looked at Kara expectantly, almost as if she had asked a question and expected an answer. Kara had no clue what to say. "Okay. You're going to have to be a little less round-about on this one, Specialist. I have an appointment in a few minutes that's really important, but I don't want to leave you hanging." Not that Lee was actually going to show up without her dragging him down here by the scruff of his neck.

"Well, it's about the fraternization policies the Twelve Colonies already had."

"Which one?"

"The main peacetime one. No fraternization between pilots and crew. And I guess the main wartime one, too. No fraternization between anyone that could distract you enough to get people killed."

"You want to know my take on them?" Kara guessed.

Cally nodded shyly, obviously doing her best to keep from having to look the CAG in the eye.

"Well, I think that every single person alive has the right to give the policies a big frak you."

"Sir? I don't understand."

"We're all that is left of our world supposedly. If we find someone that makes us happy and we find that we actually like being happy in contrast to the constant suffering that has been going around lately, then no stupid law should keep that for happening."

"So, you think that it would be all right if people knowingly broke colonial law?"

"I think there's not much anyone could do. I mean, if I broke the fraternization policy, what would they do?"

"Ground you, sir. Everyone knows that's what happens to pilots."

"And what would grounding me do except add to the pressure put on the small number of pilots and crew we have and potentially cause unnecessary death. The Old Man isn't stupid. He knows that the law doesn't hold up in the world we live in right now."

"Oh."

Kara smiled at the young girl in front of her. It was weird having such a normal conversation in the middle of chaos. And it seemed whatever she was saying was making Cally very, very happy. It made her curious as to why. "Can I ask what necessitated your seeking my opinion?"

"Crashdown wanted to take me on a real date instead of sneaking around in the corridors between shifts."

She had thought that she couldn't be surprised now that she was the CAG and it was her job to stay informed about every little thing concerning her pilots. Gossip around the triad tables usually kept her informed enough. Turns out she wasn't as informed as she thought.

"Crashdown?" She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"He saved my life at least three times when we were stranded on Kobol. Made me wonder if maybe he wasn't the cocky asshole I always thought he was."

"And?"

"And turns out I was right the first time around," Cally said with a smirk as she stood up. "But he is the most attractive asshole I've ever met. And he makes me laugh." Her face broke out in a huge smile. "And he brought me flowers everyday I was in sickbay. I have no idea where the frak he got flowers from, but they were there by my bedside every day I woke up."

"You know as CAG, I am required to report you to the Commander even if I don't support the fraternization policy that's still in place," she pointed out.

"But you're not going to."

"I'm not?" Kara leaned back in her chair and smiled. "Do enlighten me as to why."

"Because you're not the type of person to do things because they are expected of you. And because knowing Crashdown is actually dating me will provide you with years of material to ridicule and tease him about. I mean, come on! Who would have thought? Me and Crash? That's ridiculous."

Kara smiled. "You know me so well."

"You know, I don't think the fraternization policy holds up concerning CAGs and their pilots either, Captain."

"What are you suggesting, Specialist?"

"I'm just saying that there might be a certain someone in the Fleet who you wouldn't mind going a few rounds in the sheets with. And if we were going to go through with your 'Frak You, Fraternization' theory, it wouldn't be so ridiculous to give him a shot."

She was tempted to tell Cally that he didn't even want a shot anymore. In fact, he probably wished she had taken that mission to Caprica instead of him. "I'm not reckless enough to just casually align myself with someone because I can. Just because I desire them does not mean I give them a free pass into my pants."

"All I'm saying is I see how you watch him when you think no one is looking. And, in my humble opinion, there's no way that anyone would even think of grounding both the CAG and the best pilot left in this universe. That could be construed as serving up our collective asses to the Cylons on a platter."

Kara didn't know what to say. She could yell at Cally that her relationship with Lee was really no one's business but her own. Or she could admit that the young Specialist was right. She really wouldn't mind a few rounds in the sheets with him, so to speak. But the one thing she knew she couldn't do was properly explain why as tempting as the thought of being with Lee was, it was only that. A thought. It would never be a reality. Things were too complicated.

And he hated her. There was always that to fall back on.

"Am I interrupting?"

Kara's eyes darted from Cally's position at the open hatch to the man now standing next to her. "No, you're not, Apollo. Thanks for stopping by, Specialist."

"Thanks for talking with me," Cally shot back. "I'll let you know if Crashdown does anything stupid."

"Please do. I owe him one for what he did to me last Friday."

Lee watched Cally leave the office, a big smile on her face. "What was that all about?"

"I was just being the CAG, listening to the complaints of the world."

"I never talked to any deck crew when I was CAG. It wasn't part of the job description if I remember correctly."

"That's why you did a half-ass job. No commitment. No dedication to the task."

"What do you want from me, Captain?" he asked point blank.

Gods. She thought she would have at least a few minutes of pointless banter before having to ease into the question of whether he wanted to die. Good thing she had a backup plan. "The President mentioned in her last meeting with the command officers that you failed to bring back the Arrow of Apollo from Caprica. I admit that I didn't even think to ask you if you had gotten it. I just assumed you did if you decided to return to the Fleet."

"It was satisfying to not finish something I started," he answered ominously.

"Okay. It's shit like that which is why you're in here."

"Sounds like this is going to take awhile." He sat down in the chair in front of her desk and kicked his feet up.

"Lee. We were friends once, weren't we?"

"I'm not sure. It's a hard thing to define."

"What is?"

He pulled his feet down off the desk with a loud sigh. "You and me. And what we once were and currently are to each other. One of life's big mysteries. Can you really be friends when all you do is cause each other pain? When the sight of each other makes your stomach twist up with guilt and regret? When you're afraid to admit how glad you are when you get assigned opposite shifts and don't have to see the other person?"

"Stop with the philosophical bullshit. I'm talking about the here and now."

"So was I. But you never really got that, did you?"

"I don't have time to deal with your crap. And I definitely don't have time to let you feed me another round of guilt. I don't think I can take any more than I already have." Her eyes widened as he stared at her incredulously. She hadn't meant to admit how much he had hurt her. Keeping her pain a secret had been the only thing that kept her fighting his harsh words and unfeeling glances.

"Fine. You resent me for finally telling the truth for once. I can understand that. You can feel as guilty as you want on your own from now on. Just let me just apologize for whatever it seems I'm doing wrong and we can move on."

She stared at his face, trying to understand why things had turned out the way they did. She hadn't meant to frak with his life and his happiness. Somewhere along the way, she had done just that though and it tore this wide, jagged rift between them that she couldn't ever repair. All she could do was push the pain to the side and do her job.

"Lee. I need to know if that stunt you pulled today was part of your desire to not have to feel the pain of living anymore."

He narrowed his eyes at her abrupt request. "Are you asking me if I was trying to get shot down out there?"

She stared at him intently for one more moment before the calm before the storm would end. His face, usually so expressive, gave nothing away. He wasn't surprised at her question, but it was obvious he had not been expecting it.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" she finally asked, dropping her eyes to the floor. She couldn't make herself look at him. If he said yes, she would think it was her fault. And if he said no, well, she would think it was her fault. She didn't really understand the logic to it, but there it was.

"Saying yes would be the easy route for you, wouldn't it? You could just suggest I go see the Doc for some drug to fix the problem, and then you could go back to trying to fix the problems of the Fleet."

She shook her head. "Telling me I was right to ask you would be the hard route. I can deal with you hating me, Lee. I can't deal with you hating life."

He raised himself slowly out of his seat and glared. Obviously something in what she said to him had rubbed the wrong way. "You're wasting your time."

"Because you're not trying to kill yourself or because there's no use in trying to stop you?"

She could see him thinking it over as he stared out the small window to the outside world. He stayed that way for a few minutes before turning to look at her directly. "Don't you ever wonder if maybe this situation would be a lot better if you weren't around? Maybe the pain of waking up in the morning would be less if people knew you weren't going to be there."

"Is that a specific you or a general you? Because that little detail makes a whole lot of difference."

He thought it over for a moment before replying. "At the moment, that was a general you encompassing anyone to which I am speaking. Was that the answer you wanted?"

"Doesn't matter. And anyway, that is such a morbid thought. And a rather shitty piece of logic." She shook her head. "I wish you would just tell me."

"Tell you what? How I got this way? I thought I made that clear to you before I left." He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "You did this to me."

He expected her to lash out at him physically. Her body was positioned for probably the best punch she had ever thrown. He could see her grinding her teeth together as she fought to hold back whatever temperamental words she had been thinking up that were currently on the tip of her tongue. He could see her balling her hands into fists and braced himself for the inevitable.

It never came.

Instead, she reached up to brush a tear he hadn't noticed away from her eye and gave him a hopeless smile. "I know."

He had never expected her to admit that he was right. He wasn't even sure he was right to blame her.

"I did everything possible to make your life hard and keep you from living. It's slightly ironic that now I'm the one in charge of making sure you do just that."

"You honestly think I'm trying to kill myself?"

"Aren't you? I mean, you might not be holding a gun to your head or a knife to your throat, but you're acting reckless. And reckless gets you dead these days."

"You're more of an expert on that topic."

"Lee, you're turning into a real frak-up and a straight-up asshole. As a CAG, I'm telling you to stop it. As a friend, I want to know why."

"We're not friends."

"You've made that clear. I happen to disagree. Only a true friend can find a way to ruin your life." She would let him decide for himself which one of the two of them had ruined the other's life.

Lee stared at her for a minute, obviously fishing for some kind of indication of something. After a moment, he took a deep breath and gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "What do you want to know, Kara?"

There it was again. He had held her name back again for so long that she hadn't been prepared when he used it again. She knew the omission was his attempt at distancing himself in a way that was probably only noticeable to her. It dug away at her slowly, every time he called her 'Starbuck' or 'Captain'. It didn't help that no matter how hard she tried, she could only refer to him as 'Lee' most of the time.

She had already called him by name at least four or five times during this current conversation. It wouldn't hurt one more time. "I want to know what the Cylons did to you, Lee."

"You were there on the day I escaped. I told the three of you everything."

"Yes. You told us what horrible things the Cylon did to you and the reasons they told you why. It was informative and completely unemotional. I want to hear the part you left out. I want to know what you felt when they were breaking and rebreaking your leg. I want to know if you wondered if you would ever fly again when you go out."

"I never wondered that," he said, cutting her off. "I never wondered about what it would be like to get out of their hands. It was never an option."

"You resigned yourself to dying."

He shrugged slightly as he walked away from the window. "There was nothing else I could do."

"What made you so willing to give up?"

"I had nothing."

The silence hung between them. Kara knew that she had to keep going, to keep pressing him to tell her more. Because Helo was right. There was something wrong with Lee, and if she didn't figure out what, there was a chance she would lose him for a fourth time. And this time the grief would be real. It would be real and it would be permanent.

"Did you fight?"

"I didn't want to."

"Why?"

"They made it easy on me to not want to."

Kara sighed and stood up out of the chair behind her desk. She walked over and sat on the edge of the desk right in front of him. "I'm going to lay it all out for you. I don't have anywhere to be, Lee. I'm off shift for the next twenty hours in order to catch up on paperwork. The paperwork can wait. So you can keep answering my questions with barely enough words to constitute a sentence or you can actually start giving me something to work with. And maybe we can both get a little rest before the night is over."

"I told you once that the Cylons were intrigued by me because I felt so much more than others they had studied and yet I could still find it in myself to kill them without hesitation."

"Like every other pilot in the Fleet."

"No," Lee said, shaking his head. "Not every pilot is like me. They hesitate when faced with shooting down one of the twelve Cylon models. It is the face of a human staring back at them, not a machine. Even if it's for a few seconds, they hesitate."

"And you don't?"

"I didn't hesitate to kill a woman that I know meant so much to you."

"Sharon."

"I shot her point blank because I knew she was a machine. I was her CAG for the months we struggled to stay alive from second to second. I turned a blind eye to her relationship with the Chief because it made her happy when happiness was not easy to come by. She was the first pilot who ever came to me with a problem. I didn't know her for seven years like you did, but she did mean something to me. And I shot her without thinking of any of that. I had a job to do."

"Anyone would have done it."

"Sure. But everyone else would have hesitated. I didn't."

"All right," she said, kicking her feet up to rest on the arms of the chair he was sitting in. "Your lack of hesitation intrigued the Cylons. Got it."

"It got their attention. But it wasn't why they kept me for so long."

"Don't tell me they developed a crush on you," she joked. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew it was a mistake. His expression immediately hardened, and she was suddenly staring at the Lee who didn't seem to want to communicate with anyone. "Sorry. Why did they keep you so long?"

"I was important."

"So we're back to the simple sentences, are we?"

He just raised an eyebrow at her and continued to stare.

"Fine. Why were you so important?"

"Because of my vulnerability."

"You intrigued them because you were hardened to any kind of sympathy or hesitation, but you were important to them because of your vulnerability? That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense."

"That's because you got the information straight from the source. You don't have to sift through all the bullshit to get to the parts that are important."

"I'm tired of this," Lee said, burying his head in his hands. She had to admit that he had looked rather tired when he had walked into her office. It made her start to worry all over again that he was losing his hold on reality. She didn't know how to deal with the idea that Lee could be stupid enough to give up on life. He had always been the strong pilot she could rely on to do the right thing and to keep them all alive. Pilots like that didn't think about suicide.

In the back of her mind, though, she felt her temper flaring regardless of how lost he looked, sitting in front of her. She hated the fact that he didn't know how tired she was. Being the CAG wasn't easy, and having a whatever-the-frak-he-was making her constantly wish she hadn't made such stupid choices all her life didn't ease the burden. She had given up sleep at least every other night to pull an extra flight rotation out of nowhere, and no one seemed to care that she had picked up the nasty habit of popping a low dose of stimulants when things got too hard. She hated stims, but there was no other way.

She stared at him for a moment. No, the man sitting in front of her had no idea how far her guilt had pushed her over the years. He didn't even seem to care. "If you're so damn tired, then maybe you should start fraking talking so we can go our own ways before the shift changes."

Lee shook his head, which was still resting gently in his hands. "No. Not that. I'm not physically tired, Captain. I'm tired of having to deal with you."

"Oh. Well, that's nice to hear." She pushed her feet down from the sides of his chair.

"You claim you want to understand what happened to me, but all you can do is joke and tease. I do not need that right now. I promised myself that I wouldn't get into the specifics of my time away from the Fleet with anyone. Even if it was a matter of the security of the Fleet, I do not want to relive what they did to me. It's for the good of all."

"They really worked you over, didn't they?"

"No. They barely touched me. I mean, they did all the tests on my healing capabilities and pain thresholds. They tested whether I would crack under excessive strain. It was all things the Academy had taught us to expect if we were ever taken prisoner by an enemy force. They never prepared us for the destruction of the psyche, though."

"They tried to break your mind?" Kara reached out to take Lee's hand, but he pulled back before she could even try. For a second, she had forgotten the changes that had occurred between them. Only months earlier, he would have been reaching out for her and she would have been the one pulling away.

Actually, that wasn't really true towards the end. If he had offered her the physical comfort of his touch, she wouldn't pull away. She wouldn't want to. Because the few times she had let him touch her had been the only moments where she felt safe. Where the terror of being humanity's last stand died away and she could imagine that she was just living a normal life.

"It was my fault," Lee whispered. "They wouldn't have gotten to me, but I fraked up."

"What did you do?" She waited a moment before asking him again. "Lee. What did you do?" When he still didn't move to look at her, let alone answer her question, she screamed forcefully, "What the frak did you do?"

He shook his head in a refusal to answer her question. He was still avoiding looking at her. She wasn't sure what to think of his stubbornness at first. But then she saw his eyes flicker up to meet hers for just one split second before resuming their previous focus on the ground. The look in his eyes shook her to the bone.

"Oh gods, Lee," she whispered, reaching out for his hand once more. This time he let her have it. "What did you do?"

"I let them see my weakness." His eyes shown with tears as he finally focused on her intently. "I let them know my vulnerability. I let them see why I was the way I am and who was responsible for making me that way. And in that moment, they knew they had me."

"I don't understand." Kara slid off the desk and sat down on the arm of the chair, her hand still tightly intertwined with his. The fact that he was so obviously suffering over what he had to say and yet hadn't pulled away from her made her feel a little satisfied. But the satisfaction wasn't something she could appreciate right now. Concern was the only thing she had room to feel.

"Sharon asked me-" His words caught in his throat for a moment. "She wanted to know why I was so intent to protect the people in the Fleet. According to her, there was only one person there I had known for longer than the few months I had been stranded with Galactica, and the Cylons already knew about my strained relationship with my father. They figured that I was just a floating loner in the remnants of humanity and that they could easily manipulate me."

"That's not true, though."

He glanced over at her. "It seems like the Cylons hadn't been able to link up with the Galactica copy of Sharon Valerii. They didn't have any further information she may have gathered. And that was why they only thought there was one person on the ship that was ingrained in my life." He gave her a small smile which made her heart selfishly leap just a little bit. The gesture was so out of place, but she wasn't about to turn down a little moment of reprieve from the emotional turmoil. "I guess my efforts to stay professional with you and ignore our past worked better than I thought. The Cylons didn't pick up on it until I was stupid enough to hand them that information without thinking."

"You said Sharon asked you something."

"She wanted to know if I was scared to imagine the idea that I would never rejoin humanity. That they might perish because I wasn't there to protect them."

"They appealed to your penchant for subtle heroics. Smart."

"I wasn't thinking that way. I should have been, but they had cut up the right side of my body pretty heavily earlier that day. The pain made me a little delirious. So I just let it slip."

"What?"

"That I wasn't worried about the Fleet because you were there." Lee shrugged at her. "I let the machines know how much faith I put in you."

He paused as the weight of his words sunk in. They both remembered with startling clarity the way she had cut him down before he flew out on his mission to secure tylium for the Fleet. She had told him she had no faith in him, and he didn't come back from that flight in order for her to apologize for the stupid mistake. He might have forgiven her for doing that, but she had not even come close to forgiving herself.

"My faith makes me vulnerable in their eyes. That was the part that I never wanted to tell anyone. They wanted me for my vulnerability." He gave her a small smile. "And my vulnerability is you."

"You blamed me for what happened," she whispered quietly, beginning to put things together.

"If I had never met you, then the Cylons wouldn't have considered me to be so important."

"No, they would have just killed you when you stopped intriguing them."

"I would have gladly accepted death over the alternative."

"What did they do to you?"

Her question seemed to snap him out of the small haze he had been in. The same mask of hardened expression came onto his face. "I've already told you."

"Please don't keep lying to me," she begged, surprised at how easy this humbling act came to her. Begging wasn't something that came easy for her, but she would do anything to keep Lee from slipping right back into that horrible place he had been for longer than she cared to imagine. "I want to know what I'm responsible for."

"The Cylons ran me through the emotional ringer. They told me things. Things that weren't easy to hear. It was like they took a look into my brain and found a way to verbalize my worst fears. They broke me down so quickly I didn't have time to fight it."

"What did they say to you?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. What matters is they knew how to hurt me and they didn't hesitate. The Cylon supermodel explained to me that what the machines were planning had nothing to do with defeating humanity. They simply wanted to follow the plan of their God and create a happier world. They wanted to make a mixed race of machines and humans."

"I know all this, Lee. When you brought Helo back and he casually let slip that there was a Cylon running around pregnant with his child, the whole hybrid plan became pretty public."

"Helo was just their first try. They realized their mistake as soon as it was made."

"What was that?"

"The child was made out of love. They couldn't find a way to eliminate the father from the pregnant Cylon's mind. In fulfilling her mission, she became a little too human for their liking. They wanted the creation of a new race to be secret. They wanted the child to have no ties."

"All those things, we could have guessed on our own."

Lee shook his head vigorously. He was obviously getting upset with her inability to see what he was getting at. "They weren't testing me to learn about the idiosyncrasies of humanity. They had selected me as the father of their second attempt."

Kara shook her head in disbelief. "There's no way that's possible. The only reason they got Helo was because they used the woman he was in love with. He would never have been so stupid if it hadn't been Sharon."

He didn't respond to her at first. Kara wasn't sure if that because he didn't want to answer her or because he didn't know how to answer her. Well, fine. If he didn't want to talk, she would just keep asking questions until that changed. "I mean since they obviously didn't have that option to fall back on, what tactic did they have to make you father a child?"

"In the end, I think they found me a lot less resistant than they imagined. I wanted so badly to be away from their constant half-truths and their nasty habit of shining light on places I would rather have left in the dark." He wasn't looking at her anymore. Instead, his eyes seemed to be focused on some random piece of the air around them.

It was making her uneasy. But the uneasiness wasn't outshining this new wave of guilt over what she had caused to be done to him.

"It really is my fault," she said sadly as his eyes darted up to look at hers. "I beat you down and beat you down until you had nothing."

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to. The Cylons wanted you for your vulnerability. I made you vulnerable. You wanted me to admit how much we meant to one another. I couldn't do that until it was too late. I wanted you to just sit around and wait until I ironed out all the issues in my life. That wasn't fair to you. I pulled you one way and then pushed you the other." She could feel the tear roll down her cheek before she even realized that she was crying. "I destroyed every single part of you that I love until there was nothing left. That's why you and I can't seem to even look at each other without screaming."

The slow truth of her words sank in, and he felt himself suddenly willing to lay a little more on the line. "I tried to be the kind of man that I saw you with all the time. The kind of man that you would want. You made me want to change everything about myself, but none of it worked. You never looked twice at me. Something snapped when I was with the Cylons. They pointed out how ironic it was that through my whole damn life I had gotten everything that I never asked for. Then comes the day when I finally find something that I desire, something that I have to work at to get. It slips right through my fingers. Slides right by me and into the hands of my baby brother."

"Lee…"

"Don't," he hissed at her. "Don't say anything. I'm tired of having to listen to people telling me how sympathetic they are. How they understand what I'm going through. Because no one does. They try to make things better. But no one can. I was beaten to within an inch of my life and then brought back slowly. The last little bit of hope I had left in this world was ripped from me by a bunch of machines. Every time I allowed myself to think I could get out or to imagine what it would be like to get back home, they were there. Reminding me that I wasn't good enough for you. That you would never want a frak up like me who could hurt you so much without even trying. We've never really been good together, Kara. It's always been obvious, but I chose to ignore it. I blindly loved you. And I'm tired. I'm so fraking tired of being the one to suffer. "

"You don't think I suffer?"

"That's the point. We both suffer."

"And you're tired of it?"

"Aren't you?"

It didn't even take her a split second to decide. She got tired of the guilt and the anger every single day. It hurt her to see him in passing and not be able to just say or do whatever she wanted to. It was so confining that she was starting to feel the pressures of claustrophobia coming down on her every minute they were on board together. Most times, it was too much even for a person like her to handle.

But in the end, she felt she was a stronger person because of it. The knowledge that those feelings would be there for her every morning when she woke up should have made her feel desolate. Instead it gave her hope. If she could love this man even when he was making her life hell, then there really was something to keep fighting for.

"I'm tired of it every single day," he said before she could give him the answer to his question.

The hopelessness in his voice caused her mind to circle back to the real reason she had forced him down to her office. Every time she had asked him before she didn't want to hear the answer. But now she didn't think she could go on without knowing the answer. "Lee. Were you trying to kill yourself today?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes. On so many levels, yes."

Lee's eyes searched hers and finally must have found the something he was looking for. He leaned up slowly and brushed his lips against hers softly. "I was," he whispered, resting his forehead against hers.

"And now?"

The question hung over both their heads. Those two words were loaded down with such importance that it wasn't hard to imagine the answer becoming the turning point in their relationship. It was time to either learn to forgive or finally let go completely.

A loud siren broke through the impatient silence between them as they waited for the anticipated moment to happen. A voice rang through the ship announcing that alert fighter pilots and all others were to report to the hangar bay. Lee shot Kara a quick look before they both went sprinting down the hall to the hangar. It sounded like the world was ending for the second time.

Just as they reached the stairs leading down to the main floor of the bay, Lee grabbed her elbow and pulled her to the side. "This has nothing to do with the Fleet. They don't want to hurt anyone. They want me back."

Kara narrowed her eyes and studied him a moment before shaking her head. "Nope."

"Nope?"

"They can't have you," she said softly before turning to enter the chaos that was every single person on the deck crew rushing to make all the ships flight ready at the same time.

He watched as she began barking orders, pairing up wingmen, checking on the status of the ships, and making sure each pilot knew what was expected of them. She was his weak spot and the source of his strength wrapped up in one hell of a package. Pain personified in a faint smirk and the slight bite of a lip.

The whole ship suddenly paused as a countdown to FTL jump came out of nowhere. The deck shifted and Lee saw several people fall to their knees from the severe jolt. Why had they made a jump? In all his years, he had never heard of a ship making a FTL jump in order to launch their Viper fighters. That was an offensive move.

He pushed the idea that they might actually be attacking out of his head, trying to ready himself for whatever was about to be thrown his way in the air. But his mind couldn't clear completely. Kara's words echoed through his head as he made his way over to the charred wreckage of his Mark VII. She had said the Cylons couldn't have him. He didn't know what that meant, but somehow it made him happy. And happiness made him vulnerable. It always went back to that.

Kara wasn't going to let him into a cockpit for this fight. After what he had finally admitted to her, she would deem it too risky. If he was truly what the Cylons wanted, she wasn't just going to hand him to them. Plus there just weren't enough birds to let a suicidal pilot have a chance to wreck another.

"Apollo."

He looked up to see her yelling at him from across the hangar. She sprinted over and shoved his helmet into his outstretched hands "Get your helmet on. I'm grounding Wipeout. He's too important to the Fleet now that he's taken on instructing the nuggets. I can't risk losing him if I don't come back from this one. You'll be flying his Mark II."

"Wipeout's your-"

"Wingman," she finished. "I'm aware. He's not the one I want by my side today. I mean, as a CAG, I have a duty to watch out for my pilots. Especially the one dying to frak his life up."

Her words hung over him as she rushed away from him as quickly as she came. There was more to what she was saying than he cared to think about right now. He was still so incredibly angry with how weak she had made him. But somewhere deep inside him, he knew like always he would forgive her.

Because this time it had been different. She hadn't run from her problems. She hadn't done something irrational and stupid to keep the troubles at a distance so that she didn't have to feel. She had stuck it out.

Somewhere deep inside, that meant something.

"Apollo! Get in your fraking Viper right now!"

He gave Cally a smile as her command rang through the hangar bay. Far be it for him to make that little spitfire mad. He gave her a mock salute and stepped into the cockpit. Knocking his comm channel on as soon as he was settled, he asked, "So, can the CAG please enlighten me as to why we're going launching into the air?"

"The Commander picked up some chatter from a reconnaissance Raptor that had jumped back to Kobol to monitor the Cylons' movements. The toasters had called two basestars to the system. They're gearing up for something."

"But why the activation call to all the fighters? Shouldn't it have just been the alerts called?"

"The Old Man was concerned that they knew our position and would attack. He wanted everyone on alert to launch."

"On alert does not explain why we're actually being launched."

The comm channel was cut into by the voice of the CIC launch desk. "Tubes 2 and 4 ready for launch. Good hunting, Starbuck and Apollo."

Lee prepared himself for the jolt as his Viper went from a stand-still to cutting through the air of space in seconds. The few moments before the thrusters kicked in… when Galactica disappeared from beneath him and it was only air… that brief feeling of being completely free… it was the best thing he had ever felt.

"All right, Vipers. Galactica wants us to hover in space to protect the Fleet. Make the Cylons come to us. We'll have at least two minutes once they release their Raiders. Until then, get a feel for the air."

When all Vipers appeared to be stably positioned, Kara picked right up with their interrupted conversation. "I told the Commander what you said when he called the hangar to let me know what was happening. We both agreed that this was the wisest decision to make."

He took a moment to collect himself and tried his best not to scream. As the anger settled, he managed to respond through clenched teeth. "You told my father what I said."

He could hear Kara gasp slightly as she realized the mistake she had made.

Gods. How could she have been so stupid? Lee had always been resentful of the way she related to his father so easily. He had hated that she knew things he didn't because William Adama had forgotten his son was even present on the ship. It was no one's fault. The two of them had just gotten used to relying on each other during her first two years stationed on Galactica. It was harder than they both thought to adjust to Lee's presence and how it would change them.

"I'm sorry, Lee. I didn't think."

"No, you didn't," he hissed before cutting off the channel.

There was that frak-up she had been waiting for since she first called Lee into her office hours earlier. Things had been going too smoothly between them. Flipping the channel to a direct line to CIC, she asked, "Dee, would you do me a favor and give me a private channel with Apollo?"

Dee didn't respond in the affirmative, but Lee could hear the slight click as the channel on his comm clicked back on without him pushing the button. "You have something you wanted to say."

"I didn't tell him anything you wouldn't want him to know." She desperately wanted to let him know that she hadn't told a soul that he had been willing to die only hours earlier. If it were up to her, she would never let anyone know he had fallen so low. It would be between the two of them only.

"But you told him something."

"I told him why you thought the Cylons were attacking because I think you're right. The Cylons want you back. And they want us out of this system."

"Then let's go. Let's get all the Vipers and ships back on Galactica and let's leave this behind. My father will not object to another jump to FTL."

"Where are we supposed to go? Everywhere we try, they just find us. We can't get away."

"We have to keep trying." Kara let out a smile. He didn't sound so suicidal anymore. Maybe she was as good of a CAG as Helo had said. "If we don't keep running, they will catch up to us. And we do not have what it takes to win."

"A pessimist to the end."

Lee sighed as he saw the distant basestars begin to get closer. "People are going to die if we do this."

"I know," she whispered, the weight of the next few hours to come suddenly bearing down on her. Some of her pilots wouldn't make it. It hurt to know that and still know this was the right thing to do.

"Why don't you just let them have me?" Lee asked abruptly.

"What the frak are you talking about?"

"The Cylons want me. Let them have me. I'm just one pilot."

"My ass you're just one pilot. You never could see your importance, could you?"

"I'm just a pilot now. I'm not the CAG. I'm not an officer. I'm just another one of the troops. If I get shot down, it will just add a little more burden to the pilot shortage. You'll have to stretch some CAPs longer and add a few more double shifts. It would make things harder, but no one would have to die if I'm gone."

"I thought I had gotten through to you," she said, shaking her head even though he couldn't see her from his position. "For a second there, I thought you had given up the idiotic notion that death would be better than living."

"It's a thought every single one of us has had stuck in our heads since day one. Death is easier than life."

"I don't believe that."

"Then you're kidding yourself."

She had no idea what had happened to make all the progress they had had disappear so quickly. "I didn't mean to hurt you by telling your father. He loves you, Lee. He would want to know what you're feeling."

"Kara. He left me behind. My father promised me that if I was ever the pilot stranded out there on some planet, he would never leave me." She heard his voice cut off but knew he was not finished. "Do you know what my first thought was when I took the Raider off of Kobol and saw the Fleet in the air above me? I should have been elated to know that I didn't have to search the cosmos for my home. That I didn't have an impossible task of locating a group of ships in endless space. But that wasn't it. The first thing I thought of was he had left me behind. My own father had promised to never abandon me, but he had."

"I never thought of it that way."

"My second thought was that you had abandoned me, too. You were the reason I had suffered so much under the Cylons' care, and you had left me behind and gone on with your life."

"Wouldn't you have wanted me to?"

"That's not the point."

"I know," she said sadly. "I'm sorry for letting them give up. Somehow I knew in my gut that you weren't gone, but I didn't listen to what I felt. I was too…"

"You were too what?"

She thought about telling him about how wrecked she had been by his death. How much guilt she had felt, knowing she pushed him into doing that mission with no confidence. She could remember the day she begged William Adama with all her might not to let them flush the coffin out of the airlock. She had said she wasn't ready to let him go, but it had been done anyway. Later the Old Man told her that she would never be able to let it go if something hadn't been done. "It doesn't matter. That was in the past."

"Our past is our present and our future. Everything we have done will circle back again."

"Straight out of the Cylon user's manual."

"They have certain points which we can't ignore."

She was getting a little fed up with the round-about way they always talked with one another. It was hard not being able to just come out and say things to him because she was scared to death how he might take it. She stared out as one of the Cylon basestars let lose what appeared to be all the Raiders they had on board.

A feeling of desolation washed over her. It wasn't long before it mixed with the anger and frustration already deep inside of her.

"What I said before was the truth. I just want you to know that before the chaos begins. I will not let them have you without a fight. They want to pray on your vulnerability, on your weakness. Well, I invite them to try to do that when your weakness is shoving torpedoes up their asses."

Lee's eyes widened with that colorful image. She had always been the toughest mother frakker he had ever met. Maybe he was the only one who could really tell that toughness was rooted in an immense fear. This was the first time he had ever felt that fear directly tied to him. She was afraid that the Cylons were going to get to him. She was afraid they were going to take him away.

And finally, for the first time, she had let him know.

"We never finished our conversation."

"It's because we waste too much time fighting," she said with a laugh.

"Kara--"

He didn't have time to respond as the Raiders got within firing range and Kara started screaming out orders to the rest of the pilots. They were quickly engaged in a fire fight. The Cylons weren't pulling their punches. They desperately wanted something, and Kara knew exactly what it was.

"They can't have it," she hissed to herself. "No fraking way."

It took all her concentration just to keep her bird in the air those first few minutes. After every other shot she connected with, she chanced a glance at Apollo and where his Viper was in relation to hers. She knew he was flying on instinct alone. There wasn't enough time to think out the moves to make. They worked off of one another and managed to hold the protective line around the Fleet.

In the back of her mind, she let herself dwell on the way he was moving and how it reminded her of the way they used to fly before the world had gotten so tough to live in. Things had changed since then. There was a hardness in his voice that life had put there. It wasn't going to go away, but she had a hunch that if she just kept pushing, she could make him understand that there were times when he didn't have to be so hardened and strong. If the Cylons wanted to prey on his soft spot for her, then she was just going to be strong enough for the both of them. No one used her as a means to hurt the people she loved.

"Starbuck, watch your port side," Apollo said through the general comm now that their private channel had been closed.

"I don't see anything," she said, squinting out at the dark sky. They had earned a few seconds reprieve as the first way of Raiders fell back to wait for replacements. She had never been so thankful to get a moment to catch her breath.

"There are remnants of the Raiders we've already caught in their line of fire floating everywhere. Some of them could really frak up a plane."

He was right. Usually the Vipers went in, did their job, and landed on Galactica. They hardly ever were required to stay in the battle-torn airspace. But there was still another basestar with Raiders out there near Kobol. They couldn't leave so they would have to be extra alert.

"I know you've been spoiled with flying your Mark VII and you may have forgotten. There's nothing out there that could take out a Mark II. These things are as tough as they come."

Her eyes caught on a large piece of metal floating on her port side just as the words left her mind. Frak. Why did she always have to be so damn cocky and sure that her opinion was the right one? Lee had been right this time, and now the piece was too close for her to avoid completely.

"All right, Apollo. Looks like I'm taking a dinger to the side of my plane."

"I don't think you should," Lee insisted as he looped his Viper in closer to hers. "It's too dangerous. Any little piece of outside material can clog up engines. The Fleet needs you in this fight."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but frak you, Lee. I'm the CAG now and it is my job to keep things safe. No more jumping out of trouble because it's the easy thing to do."

Somehow, Lee was pretty sure she wasn't solely talking about taking that piece of metal to the side of her plane.

"If you'll excuse me."

A slight bang echoed through the comms, and Starbuck's ship bounced a few minutes through space before she got control back. "Frak," he heard her mutter.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Does the nothing explain why the left side of your Viper has a big gash down it?"

"The metal was a bit sharper than I thought. But I think I'm still flight- FRAK! Incoming, Vipers! The second basestar just launched another round of Raiders."

Kat's voice echoed across the comms. "How the frak could they have more?"

"I don't know, Kat, but they won't have more for long," Apollo said as he let lose a round of shots. They must have been aimed well because the Cylons were suddenly down two fighters. He tried to concentrate on the task at hand as the Raiders came rushing in.

Almost as quickly as it began, the attack was over.

"Starbuck, are you with me?" There was no answer. He had lost her at some point in the quick engagement they had just gone through.

"Where the frak is the CAG?" he yelled to no one in particular while trying to pinpoint her both on his consul and visually.

"She went in hard when the Cylons showed up, sir. I lost her about twenty seconds into it," Hot Dog replied.

Apollo didn't respond. They probably only had a few minutes reprieve before the next round of Raiders came through. He still didn't understand why they were doing this besides the simple matter of principle that the Fleet wasn't just going to hand over one of their pilots to the Cylons. He found himself wondering whether the President had had a say in their decision to take on the machines. There was a nagging feeling inside him that she had. When had he managed to win the whole Fleet's heart and completely blind their heads?

And why the frak was he thinking about that now?

"Come on, Kara. Where the frak did you go?"

His eyes suddenly caught on a flash of metal as it slid down across the sky. He wouldn't have even given it a second glance if he hadn't noticed a gash through the side of metal facing him. "Frak," he whispered and knocked on his comm. "Straightshooter, watch out for the next wave. I think our CAG's gotten herself into a tight spot."

"And it's time for you to play savior to her once more," the young Lieutenant said with a laugh as he swooped in to take up the positioning previously occupied by Starbuck and her wingman.

Apollo kicked in his thrusters and sped over to where Kara's Viper lay dormant. "Galactica, Apollo. I'm diverting the power of my general comm to talk to Starbuck. I think there might be a short in her system. A concentrated burst might be able to reach her." He shook his head as soon as the words came out of his mouth. That made absolutely no sense, but it was the only thing he could come up with at the moment.

"No need. I can hear you, Apollo."

He rolled his eyes. "Then why the frak didn't you answer before?"

"I have this situation under control."

"And what situation would that be?"

There were a few sparks as something in the tail of her Viper suddenly ignited. "My inevitable crash landing."

"Frak, Starbuck! What the hell happened?"

"The damage of hitting that piece of shrapnel must have affected my thrusters. I couldn't get out of the way of a few shots by the toasters. They took out my direction control."

"So you have power but you just can't control it?"

"Yes."

"All right. We need to get you back."

"Um, in case you haven't noticed, my Viper is currently smoking and I think my port thru--"

Kara's voice cut off as there was another explosion and her Viper started dropping at a rapid pace.

"Starbuck, what happened?" There was no answer. "Starbuck!" he yelled even though he knew getting louder wouldn't make her hear him any better. He didn't think she was faking a comm failure this time.

He kicked his ship into burn and followed her down, hating the fact that he had to continue accelerating to keep up with her ship. His borrowed Viper started to knock around as he entered the atmosphere. He could only imagine how hard of a time Kara was having controlling her entry without any directional control at her disposal.

The sight of her Viper spinning was lost as the air became foggy closer to the planet's surface. All he could do was pray that Kara was as good a pilot as she had always bragged she was and hold on tight as he did his best to stay alive on his own entry. In the back of his head, he wondered if maybe he should have told Galactica he was going after her. That got him to wondering why he was going after her. Kara had always been very capable of taking care of herself.

That's when it suddenly hit him. This was why the Cylons selected him. Kara didn't want him to save her. She didn't need him to save her. And yet here he was, risking his life to make sure at the end of the day she still had hers.

She was making him vulnerable. If he was really what the Cylons wanted, then they'd have a much better chance of getting him if they were planetside. After all, he knew firsthand how large a stronghold the machines had on this planet. He was playing right into their hands by getting out of the air. And he didn't care.

He kicked his thrusters back as the ground started getting close to his ship. He couldn't see Kara, but he knew she was out there somewhere.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. If Kobol truly was the birthplace of the gods, maybe it would be easier to get prayers answered.

"Galactica, Apollo. I'm landing on the planet to see if I can do some damage control on however bad a crash the CAG just took." He only got static in return. He must be out of comm range.

"Okay, Lee. This isn't as bad as you think. So your ship has no idea that you followed Starbuck planetside because she had no direction control and her bird was on fire. So they don't know that the atmosphere seems to be so bad that only the best pilot could keep themselves in one piece. You told Straightshooter where you were going. Once the Cylons realize you're gone, the attacks will cease and 'Shooter will put it all together. Granted, once that happens, the Cylons will start coming for you down on the ground. But you can hold them off for the few minutes it takes to get a pick-up flight launched." He shook his head. "And you are now having a conversation with yourself. How-"

His voice clogged in his throat as he got close enough to the ground to see a charred piece of metal that looked like it had gone through a trash compactor after being systematically beaten to within an inch of its life. This particular piece of metal bore the crest of Galactica and the label of Starbuck.

"No," he whispered, staring at the smoldering ship.

Within one minute, he had his Viper on the ground, his helmet flung into his empty pilot seat, and his feet pounding the dirt as he ran to see how bad it really was. The only thing he took time to do was flip the switch that sent out a distress signal to Galactica as a last ditch effort to get some help.

"Shit," he hissed, noticing as he got closer that the cockpit window was cracked in too many places for him to see into it properly. "Starbuck! Can you hear me?"

There was no answer.

Reaching out, he tried to knock the latch open. His hand immediately started to burn from the heat of the ship. It would take at least five minutes for it to cool down enough to get the hatch open. He didn't have time for that.

This was Kara inside that cockpit. There was a high chance that his best friend in the world wasn't conscious in a small confined space that was rapidly filling up with smoke. He didn't care if a squadron of Cylons suddenly swarmed on him. She needed him. That was all he had to know.

Letting out a scream, he tried to push the pain to the side as he punched the latch hard with his hand and pulled it until it let out a satisfying pop. Smoke filtered into the open air, and Lee did his best to push it out of the way.

"Starbuck!" he yelled as he grabbed onto the hot metal of her mauled starboard wing and pulled himself up until his feet rested on the ridge of the open cockpit hatch. The smoke cleared for him to make out her unconscious body still latched into the pilot seat. There was a faint smell of burning rubber from where his boots were planted on the wing, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the task at hand.

He grabbed the belt release and pulled as hard as he could until the thing snapped open. Her flight suit felt cool against his hand compared to the hot metal of the ruined ship. The momentary relief from pain let him start to think of his next move. There was no smooth way to get down from the cockpit without the standard rolling stairs that every deck crew had ready when a ship landed.

"I really wish you would wake up," he whispered as he pulled her up again his body. He felt the hot metal of the control panel touch his back and jumped slightly. With Kara's added weight to his body, he lost all sense of balance immediately. Before he could right himself, the back of his knee banged against the stick and he found himself twisting right over the cockpit edge.

The first thing he felt through the pain was the ground hitting his back. As soon as his head cleared, he realized it probably made more sense the other way around. The next thing he felt was an overwhelming gratefulness that he had twisted in time to put his body between that hard ground and the pilot in his arms.

She groaned slightly as if on cue, and he pushed himself up off his back. Turning her, he tried his best to support her head with his hands as her eyes slowly blinked open.

"Kara."

"What the frak happened?"

"I don't know."

Her hand reached up and touched her temple, coming away with blood on her fingertips. She held it out for him to see. "I'm bleeding."

"I noticed. I think you hit your head on the side of your cockpit hatch."

"It hurts."

"I'm sure it does." His eyes darted up to the wreckage that was still smoking from somewhere deep inside. "We need to move."

"I'm too tired," she whispered as her eyes slid shut.

He groaned and pulled her with him as he stood. "You better not be getting a concussion on me. I don't have that kind of patience."

"I don't have a concussion. I'm just tired. Life sucks."

"Okay," he said shaking his head. "I'll keep that in mind. We need to get walking."

She pulled her head back and frowned at him. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere where we can hide until Galactica sends someone down to get us."

He made an attempt to move forward, but the weight of her kept him from going more than a step. "You have to move your legs in order for this to happen."

"My knee hurts, Lee. And I really want to sleep."

"Okay." Sighing, he tried to forget how much his hands hurt from the burns he had gotten in his efforts to get her free of the cockpit. Bending slightly, he slid his left hand in under her knees and lifted her up into his arms. He pulled her in tight.

"Where are we?" she asked, resting her head against his chest and closing her eyes.

"We're on Kobol."

"Ah. The birthplace of the gods."

"I know. I'm very familiar with it."

"Aren't there Cylons all over this place?"

"Yeah."

"Just checking," she said, sighing.

He felt her slump against his body as she began to relax in the comfort of his arms. He didn't think she had a concussion considering she was keeping up a coherent string of dialogue with him, but still sleeping might not be the best option for her in his humble opinion. He squeezed her shoulder. "Kara. Don't you have any other questions for me? You seem filled to the brim with them today."

"No. I'm perfectly content right now with the information I have."

"Then, do me a favor and just keep talking."

"I don't want to," she said, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck.

"Come on. Tell me something I don't know. I'm going to need you to keep my mind off how fraking heavy you are."

"Bite me, flyboy."

Jokes and threats were good. He jostled her body slightly as he tried to get a better grip on her. "There are some trees we can seek cover under about a mile away. Just keep talking until we get there and then you can rest."

"I don't have anything to say."

"I highly doubt that," he said with a laugh. "Tell me about how much your knee smarts and how you're going to hate the rehab Doc Cottle will put you through when we're back on Galactica."

She groaned. "I do not want to talk about that."

"It won't be so bad."

"Not if you're there."

"My being there won't help you."

"It helped the first time."

"I don't understand. I wasn't there when you got out of your bed in sick bay after hurting your knee."

"You were there the first time I tried."

"And you gave up almost immediately. I hate to admit it, but I always figured it was because I was taunting you. It must have been hard to work through the pain when I just kept causing more."

He glanced down to look at her. She was no longer resting her head against him with her eyes shut. Instead, she was staring at him with the corners of her mouth turned up in a small smile. "You had to keep up appearances."

"You picked up on that?"

"I heard the comfort in your tone before Doc Cottle gave you that look. If he hadn't silently reprimanded you, though, I would have done it. You were being too nice to me." She closed her eyes again and rested her head again, though the smile didn't leave her face. "I think that was the first moment I realized how much you cared for me."

"Really?"

"You were supposed to be taking your turn at CAP, but you got Horn to cover for you so that you could be down in medical with me."

"I didn't realize you knew that."

"I asked around."

He could feel her nuzzle his neck lightly. "What are you doing down there?"

"Smelling you."

He let out a small laugh. "Okay."

"You smell nice. Sweaty but nice."

"Thank you, I think." Lee found himself reassessing his decision that she did not have a concussion. After all, she was sniffing him.

"I think you gave me strength that day," she said quietly.

"What day?"

"The one where you went on a one-man mission to get me to walk. I can still feel your hand on my back as I took those first steps. It was reassuring."

"I think you're just a little confused. My hand is on your back now, not then." He tightened his grip on her to prove the point. "I'm thinking you have a concussion, Captain."

"I don't have a concussion. I'm just tired from all the fraking work you left me on Galactica."

He rolled his eyes, though he was secretly glad that she was coherent enough to argue. "As if I forced you into taking the CAG position on purpose."

"I'm convinced you did."

"You don't have a concussion but you think I tricked you into being the CAG and you remember the feeling of my hand on your back all those months ago?"

"Yes," she said, scowling at him.

"I don't know, Kara. Helping you along with my hand wasn't really something I should have been doing. You were a strong pilot who needed to make herself walk on her own. I couldn't coddle you if I wanted you to get back on your feet."

"Your hand wasn't on my back then like it is now," she corrected. "You were just barely brushing me with your fingertips, but I could still feel it. And I could imagine the worried look you had on your face even while you were taunting me into walking. You were always there for me."

They lapsed into silence as he kept walking them away from the crash site. Holding her tightly, he hoped that the slight jostling wasn't causing her pain. She didn't look that banged up on the outside, but he wasn't sure if even the mighty Starbuck could have come out of that crash so unhurt.

"Lee?" she asked quietly, pulling him away from his worrying. "Why are you here?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"On Kobol. Why are you down here with me? I didn't send out a distress call. I didn't ask someone to follow me down to the planet. But you were here to pull me from the cockpit. Why?"

"You were in trouble, and the Fleet needs you to be safe. You're important."

"No more than the next person."

"Not true and you know it."

"But why didn't you send someone else down to get me? Why did you come yourself?"

He hesitated a moment. "Because I couldn't trust anyone else."

"Lee."

"Don't ask me, Kara. Please."

"Lee." He stopped walking and looked down at her. "Why am I so important to you?"

"I don't know." He shook his head and starting walking them towards the trees again. "You just are."

"I'm going to be the death of you," she said as her eyes slid shut.

"I don't really mind that much anymore."

He waited a few moments for her to tell him how stupid he was being, but it never came. He looked down at her. Her breathing had evened out and it seemed like she was sleeping peacefully in his arms. He suddenly felt something slid back into place deep inside of him.

"You know, I was looking at your ship as we floated in space and something occurred to me, Kara. You were so adamant that the Cylons couldn't have me. I have torn your life to shreds both times I came back to the Fleet, and yet you still refuse to give me up. You just kept trying to apologize. Don't think I didn't notice."

He heard her murmur lightly in her sleep, but the idea that she might wake up to hear what he was actually saying didn't alarm him. Maybe it would be easier if she understood how she had been slowly fixing the wounds the Cylons had inflicted upon him throughout the past few months. He hadn't been with her for more than a few weeks, but everything she did and everything she said seemed to make it a little bit better.

"So I had this thought when I was making my way to you earlier. It occurred to me that there was only one thing that I'm sure about these days. That if the Cylons wanted to have me for whatever crazy reason they could come up with, that was fine. I know what they're capable of now, and they don't scare me anymore. They are just machines searching for some way to be human. But they'll never get it from me. They can't seem to understand that what makes me human can never be understood."

He smiled at her sleeping face as he walked a few feet into the foliage and stopped. "That's why I was so upset that you and my father decided so adamantly that they couldn't have me. Because it wasn't what I wanted. The Cylons could have me. I didn't care. As long as it kept you safe, I didn't care. You make me weak, but you keep me strong, too. I would have known that the Fleet was safe now. You were safe now."

He set her down gently on the soft grass underneath one of the tree trunks. Taking a step back, he smiled down at her. The woman in front of his eyes was the whole reason the Cylons had held him for so long. She was the one part of his life that made no sense. He couldn't understand it so it was no wonder that the machines couldn't comprehend why she was there in his heart.

The anger had welled up inside of him when he first came back to the Fleet. He tore her apart for the pain she had caused him without really realizing. While he was trying to survive on Caprica, the guilt over what he had done to her finally kicked in. He had vowed that if he managed to get back to the Fleet, he would apologize.

He hadn't found time to do that yet. There had been a million opportunities when she talked about the guilt he had made her feel for him to say how wrong he was. But each time the opening presented himself, he just got angry and hurt her some more.

Which was why he was determined to let her go. He had come into her office that day, knowing that when he left she would never want to talk to him again. He was going to cut her down until there was nothing left between them but hatred. Then she might stand a chance of being safe from the Cylons.

Things hadn't gone as he planned.

When the alarms rang out signaling the Cylons were preparing for attack, he knew immediately what they were there for. It had been quite easy to lie to her and say that the Cylons were there to get him. He was surprised she had accepted it so quickly, but then she really hadn't had time to fully understand how the Cylons thought process worked like he did. If they had still wanted him, he never would have made it off Caprica.

No, it was definitely not him.

He bent down and brushed a piece of hair off her face. "The Cylons can take away everything else I have. I don't care about any of that. But they can't have you."

Kara shifted and squinted up at him. "What did you say? I think I fell asleep."

"You've had a rough day. It's understandable."

"I missed something important, didn't I?"

"Nothing that I can't say again when the time's right."

"Whatever that means," she said with a light laugh. She struggled to sit up, and he felt his hands unconsciously reach out to help her. "Thanks. So how long do you think we'll be down here before anyone notices we're missing?"

He sat down beside her with a laugh. "Come on! Two important people like us. They should have been here ten minutes ago."

"You can't trust them to get anything done if we're not around though."

"Good point."

They lapsed into a sort of comfortable calm as the sounds of birds echoed through the trees around them and the sun beat down onto their shoulders. Lee started wondering if the distress signal was actually working. He didn't know how long it would take Galactica to get them help. And yet he wasn't really that worried or scared. It was odd.

"How's your head feeling?"

"It's been better and it's been worse."

He reached over to touch the scrape on her temple. She let out a small hiss of pain but didn't pull away from his touch as he inspected the wound closer. "That looks pretty bad."

"It doesn't matter." He could feel her mind thinking something over for a moment before she looked up at him. "I'm really sorry for everything, Lee," she whispered.

He took in the nervous look on her face as she chewed on her bottom lip. Here she was again with one of her unneeded apologies. He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "I know, Kara. I know."

They sat together in silence, and he could feel the moment begin to pass. And finally, he understood that he couldn't let it. "I'm sorry, too."

She rested her hand on top of the one he was holding her close with. "I know, Lee. I've always known."

He stared at her as she closed her eyes and let herself fall back to sleep. And there it was again. The sudden understanding.

His vulnerability was what kept him alive, and as long as he lived, the Cylons couldn't take that away from him.

They might be stranded on the birthplace of the gods, but he didn't need to pray to know they would make it through this. They were together. And they were both determined not to let the machines win.

The Cylons would not take her away from him. He would die before he let that happen.

"Life is going to get better for us from now on," he said, placing a small kiss on the top of her head. "I promise."

The sounds of some distant explosion didn't make him flinch.

Sure, there were hard times ahead for him. But for now he was just going to sit here and enjoy the one moment of peace the gods had seen fit to give him. It might be the last he had. Smiling at the woman in his arms, he was suddenly glad that he still had her to share this with.

He let out a deep breath, pulling Kara close to him, and stared around at the hopelessness of their situation as the birds continued to sing.


	3. Strength

Lee Adama felt himself stir out of sleep. He was still chained to a cold, metal table in the middle of an empty room. It was the same place he had woken up in for what seemed like his whole life. A quick glance around the room told him there was no one around to stare at him this time. Odd. Somehow he had gotten used to the feelings associated with being a lab rat for a bunch of machines.

"Looks like visiting time is over at the zoo," he said, ignoring the raspy-ness of a voice that hadn't been used properly in days. He kept getting the nagging sensation that there was something he was supposed to remember. Something he had to do. Something had happened right before he passed out from pain the last time. It was important, too.

Lee furrowed his brow in concentration but nothing came. It should anger him that he couldn't figure it out, but in the end, he knew it really didn't matter. It wasn't like he could do much chained to a table in some unknown place. And that's all he had ever been since they brought him in.

His arm tensed up in the pain of what had been done to him the day before. The Cylons had decided to test to see if his emotions would heighten the pain he felt from a physical wound. These little tests and exams were starting to piss him off in their uselessness. This time, they had slowly said names and words to see if they could get an emotional reaction from him. When he did react, the machine would cut him just deep enough to make him cringe.

It had gone on for hours.

Sharon. The face of the toaster he had once called friend flashed through his head. She has asked him something when he had a strange reaction to what she said. Something to do with his lack of fear that he would never get free. That he would never go home to those he loved. He had slipped up. He just couldn't quite remember how.

With these stupid tests that went nowhere, the machines were just wasting time until they found a way to break his spirit. He knew it, and they knew it. And he wasn't going to break. There was too much riding on his staying strong.

A nagging feeling rose up from inside of him. He had already slipped up. They had already broken him. It was the one fear he had had the whole time he was trapped here. He would do something or say something that intrigued the Cylons' interest away from him and they would move on to the bigger target of the remainders of humanity.

Pain made it hard to focus.

There was an all-too familiar bang as the door to the room slid open. Lee watched as the blond Cylon entered and paused in front of his makeshift bed with a rather unnerving smile plastered on her face. The toasters always looked happy, and this unexplainable happiness usually led to some form of pain inflicted upon him. After that, they only got happier.

"We're going to let you go today, dear Apollo," she said, stroking his cheek lightly with her fingertips. "Does that bring you joy?"

Lee pulled himself as far away from her touch as he could, considering he was still chained to the table. His head spun a little from the movement. Looks like the drugs from the day before hadn't worn off yet. He struggled to get a hold of his bearings.

"Are you in pain?" the Cylon asked.

The genuine concern in the machine's voice was what snapped him out of the haze. "Is this another test? You want to see my reaction when offered freedom?" He let out a cold laugh. "I don't care about being free. In fact, I think death looks a hell of a lot better. So, please. Just kill me so you can do your autopsy and get the answers you so desperately want."

"You are being difficult today," the machine scolded him. "So unlike your normal self. Maybe you've somehow forgotten how much you've damned her, Lee Adama."

As she spoke, the Cylon dug her fingers into the open wound in his right shoulder and pushed. Pain shot through his body, and Lee felt like his head was going to explode for just a moment before she let up the pressure. He could feel the wound open and start bleeding again. With the release of pain as her hand pulled away came clarity.

Pain made him remember.

Swimming somewhere just below the surface was the guilt connected with what he had done. How he had slipped up and how he knew there was no way to fix it. Ending his pain in death wasn't a solution any longer. The pain would still be there even when his breath was gone. The memory of what will happen would still be there. Her face, forever branded in his mind. The look of betrayal written all over it.

"We're going to take her. You've shown us the way." This new voice echoed through the room as the small woman stepped out of the hallway.

Lee bit down hard on his lip, pushing the remainder of the pain to the side, as the picture of the face he could only hope to one day see again intensified in his mind. He hadn't meant to betray her.

Directing his attention to the other Cylon model who frequently showed herself to him, he watched as she hung back in the doorway of his makeshift prison and smiled at him knowingly. This was a woman he had trusted with his life, and now all he wanted to do was shoot her dead. It seemed that might be the only way to cause any change to his current situation.

Death was the solution. He had come to understand that.

Lee just hoped it would be his death and no one else's. He bit back the anger and tried the small voice of reason left inside him. "I don't care what you do to me. Just leave her alone."

The blond shook her head slowly in a gesture he would have interpreted as disappointment under any other circumstance. Then her expression shifted as she turned to punch the helpless man chained in front of her. Violence was the solution for the machines. Her fist landed squarely on his jaw, and he could hear a small crack followed by the familiar pain. His whole life had become the small gaps of relief between the long periods of pain.

"That's very, very selfless of you to offer yourself up in order to keep her safe. Extremely selfless and very stupid. Especially since she's to blame for most of the pain you've been given." The blond Cylon waited for him to deny it. When he didn't, her face broke out into another large smile. "I believe we've finally come to a point we both agree on."

Lee wanted to scream at these machines that they were wrong. She had nothing to do with what had happened to him the past few years. She had nothing to do with his crash landing and subsequent abduction. She had nothing to do with the fact that the Cylons were intrigued by him.

But a voice in the back of his head was there to point out the validity in their words, though. All the flaws and faults the Cylons found so interesting were created because of what she had done to him. Maybe his accidental betrayal was his way of unconsciously paying her back.

"She's not the one you want," he spit out. He couldn't remember what he had said that made them shift their interest. He struggled to understand and got nowhere. The pain was fading and so was the little glimmer of memory.

"It is all in the interest of God."

Lee closed his eyes for a moment. He hated when the machines started speaking of religion to him. It should be clear to them by now. The world they live in could not possibly have any god, singular or plural, watching over it. It was too painful and full of mistakes. God or the gods, however it wants to be phrased, they don't exist. And they never did.

"We're setting you free, Lee, even though there is still much we do not understand," the Boomer model said as she reached forward to unhook the cuffs which held him to the table. She paused to smile down at him and touch his cheek with a tenderness he was only beginning to comprehend. "Your weakness intrigues us, but we can find no explanation for it."

"And confusion will set me free," he hissed, glaring definitely, as the cuffs fell to the ground and she pulled her hand back.

The blond stepped closer and leaned over to kiss him gently on the lips. He stayed somber even though there was something inside that ached at such an intimate form of contact. She smiled at him before whispering, "I will miss you and the uncanny resemblance to your namesake. But it's for the good of all. God wants to understand how you will manage when you return to the Fleet and they inevitably reject you because of your vulnerability."

"They won't reject me," he snarled, rubbing his wrists where the irritated skin had begun to bleed. He knew what the machines were doing by trying to undermine all the things he believed in. It scared him to admit that it was working more and more each day he was in their clutches.

"Of course they will," the blond Cylon said with a knowing smile. "Why would they want someone who has damned their whole existence?"

"I told you nothing."

"You've told us everything."

He dared to be defiant even when he knew that the machine was right. His mind knew he had told them everything. One slip-up and it was done. "She won't let you take her."

"How is she to know we even want her?"

"I'll tell her."

"You are not worthy in her eyes. She will only laugh in your face. After all, is that not what she has always done?"

Lee bit back the impulse to keep fighting. It took too much out of him, and he would need all of his strength just to get away. They said they were going to set him free, but he knew it wouldn't be that easy. They had kept him here for what felt like forever but, in actuality, was probably not that long. They had dutifully probed and prodded at him until he made a mistake. Maybe that was why they were letting him go. He finally made a mistake.

Why did his mistake have to damn her, though? Why when one of them was heading up did it force the other to go down? Happiness could not co-exist in both of them.

Lee stared as the heavy, metal door banged shut behind the two Cylon models. They had left him, signaling the end of their conversation and the beginning of his new struggle. He had to get out. He was still stuck in this room, but now he wasn't tied down. They had given him one chance to get free. He knew that he had to take it before they chained him down again.

One chance. He could do it.

Taking one hesitant step away from the table, he felt his mind begin to get hazy again. The pain in his head seemed to be muted even as he felt his temples pound under the pressure. He was becoming detached, and he didn't think that was such a bad thing.

Memory of what he had said to Boomer slowly faded out. Even one step made him nauseous and his sight began to give out. He shook his head, doing his best to fight off the feeling, but it wouldn't go away. The haze was increasing. It was almost welcome.

Clarity hurt.

His eyes glazed over, and his wrists started to throb from the feel of fresh air pounding down on the open wounds. Lee found himself suddenly unable to remember what had driven him to want to return to the Fleet now more than ever. He tried to focus, but it didn't help. The source of his determination was waning, slowly slipping away from him every step he took towards that door.

The pain was fading with each small shuffle.

* * *

Lee shot up with a start, breathing heavily, and tried to get his bearings. He was in the forest somewhere and not chained to a table. There was the sound of distant birds. He had forgotten that birds even existed. The sun beat down on his face. He had forgotten that, too.

The words of the Cylons rang through his head, screaming of rejection and vulnerability, but there was no one speaking to him. No one slowly crushing all hope and faith he had left. That was in the past.

Now he was alone.

"Lee?"

Her soft voice cut through the silence and made him realize once again he was wrong. It was starting to become a habit.

"Would you stop tossing and turning? I'm trying to get some fraking sleep."

He smiled as she glared at him before turning over to fall back asleep. No, he remembered now. He was definitely not alone.

Kara had snuggled herself up against his side about an hour ago, and he hadn't even thought to push her away. She had had a rough morning, what with the in-depth emotional upheaval of their conversation and then the subsequent crash landing of her Viper. She was going to be out of contention for at least a little longer.

Figuring that he had about an hour's more time before she even thought of waking up to start demanding to know their next plan of action, he tried to think of what they would need to get themselves off of Kobol and back with the Fleet. In their relationship, he had always been the one to think up the plan while she came up with the solutions when his plan went horribly wrong. This particular instance happened to bring with it the extra pleasure of a timed deadline.

Out of nowhere, the words of the tall, blond Cylon rang through his ears again. The memory of her continual insistence that the Fleet will abandon him still rang true. They might reject him when they come to realize that the Cylon's attack of the Fleet was directly related to the mistake he had made while in their custody months earlier.

Rejection had always been a possibility. But now it was no longer a probability.

Things change.

"Enough with the self pity, Lee. It's time to figure out a way to get back home." With only a small twinge of regret, he pulled away from Kara and hastily got out his sidearm. The movement brought the pain of his burnt hands back to the top of his mind, but he pushed it to the side. Not enough time.

Deciding he was prepared as he could ever be, Lee started making his way back to the Viper wreck. There was something he needed back there. He could hear Kara grumbling in her sleep as he walked out into the sun.

Some things never changed.

* * *

Kara pulled herself out of sleep quickly when she felt neither the familiar coldness of a colonial Battlestar nor the slight claustrophobic heat of being in space. The memory of her hasty landing on Kobol came back, and she groaned.

"Yeah. It was a pretty crappy landing if I do say so myself, and I've seen a lot of them so I would know. I'm your former CAG, after all."

She wasn't at all surprised that Lee would know what she would wake up thinking. That man understood her better than she understood herself. Pulling herself up into a sitting position, she shrugged her shoulders as she moved to stretch out the last bit of sleep still left in her body. "I'm alive, aren't I?"

"Thanks to me," Lee said with a laugh. He reached down to pick something off the ground which he quickly tossed at her. "Got you a present."

She looked down at the small piece of metal and wire in her hand in confusion. "This is a battle comm. Where the frak did you get that?"

"I had it in my emergency crash kit."

"It's not regulation," she pointed out as she fiddled with the device in her hand. It looked like it had been tampered with. There were definitely a few key wires out of place.

"I put it there myself. You should be thankful."

She fiddled with the buttons. "Do you think these things actually work? They looked like they've been strapped to a pyramid ball that's been played a few too many times."

"I tested them out. They do."

She gave him a wry look as she stood up to stretch out her legs. Obviously the present of a comm meant he expected her to use it. Figures that when she was sleeping, he was strategizing and coming up with at least twenty different ways they could get themselves off the planet. Some things never changed no matter how frakked up she made things. "Might I ask how the hell you tried out a comm system by yourself? Did you say something in one comm piece and then run two feet to see if you could hear it in the other?"

He glared at her a moment before responding. "All right. I tested to make sure they had power then."

"So all you know is they turn on? Your ability to discover new things just amazes me." She couldn't hide the gleeful feeling she had in the pit of her stomach. Being able to point out Lee's faults was always a good time. The glee cut right out of her when she saw the sharp look on his face. "What is it, Lee?"

"Nothing," he said, bringing up the mask she had became all too familiar with in the past few weeks.

"Something." She walked over, squatted down inches away from where he sat, and waited until he looked her in the eye. It only took a few seconds. "Tell me."

"You don't change."

"I like the way I am."

"I like it, too," he whispered, staring into the distant horizon. She saw a brief smile come to his face before his features fell back into the sad, hopeless look that had been passing for norm lately. It was enough to make her reach out to grasp his hand. Anything to keep her from focusing on the little bit her heart broke ever time he gave her that look.

"What's the problem, Lee?"

"When I was with the Cylons, I spent hour after hour hearing all the reasons why you didn't respect me. Why I wouldn't be good enough for you. They pointed out my flaws. And it felt familiar." He pulled his eyes up to look at her intently. "It took me a long time to realize why. You've been pointing out the same things they did for years."

"It all goes back to how I frakked up your life," she said with a nervous laugh.

"Not exactly. You strengthened me like always," he corrected. "That was why they made no progress towards getting me to do what they want. I'd heard it all before."

"Don't try to gloss over the truth," she insisted. "I can handle the truth."

"And what would that be?"

"It still hurts you when I point out your flaws. It might not be as noticeable, but it still hurts you. And I know that."

"It never seems to stop you."

They returned to the comfortable silence that had always been their specialty since they first met. It had disappeared for those few tense months that Lee blamed her for what happened to him, but it had come back to them rather suddenly since they landed on Kobol. It was odd. There shouldn't be comfort in the words they say. Another facet to the impossible relationship.

"I can change," she said suddenly, tracing a few circles on top of his hand before letting it go to rub her nose. An unconscious gesture she had had for years. Lee knew she fidgeted with her nose when she was serious. "It might take me a while, but I can change. I don't want to hurt you, Lee. I'm tired of being the source of the pain I see in your eyes."

"Poetic," he said with a laugh. "Very un-Starbuck-like."

Kara shook her head at him. "We're having a serious moment here and you decide to joke?"

"I can be serious," he said, pulling her down so that she sat next to him. "As much as I see you as the same Starbuck who brutally kept me in check, there's a contradiction. You've changed in a way, Kara. That was what surprised me the most when I came back to the Fleet. You took on the role of CAG and leader so fully that I only saw small traces of the hotshot pilot I tried so hard to keep under control."

Kara picked at the grass absentmindedly. "There were issues I had to deal with. It made it easy for me to grow up." She stared at him a moment, wondering if this was the right time to go through this. In the end, she figured there might not be another time, and she was tired of putting important things on hold because life was too chaotic. "Dealing with your death wasn't easy."

"You got through it just fine," he said with a chuckle.

Kara had expected an answer like that. It just proved how little he really understood. "No, I didn't. I put on a good show for everyone one around me. Everyone except your father, that is. He always saw right through me. I think it runs in the family."

Lee smiled at her. "No pretenses. That must have been how Zak hooked you."

"Actually, Zak never could see through my bullshit. He made me want to stop lying, though. That's what hooked me." A faint rumbling echoed through the forest to remind them that they weren't on some sort of vacation. Kara wasn't going to let herself be distracted by that, though. They were in the middle of another one of those conversations that had to be finished. "I thought that losing Zak and going through that grief would make losing you a lot easier. The blame was the same."

He shook his head in disagreement just like she knew he would. "You weren't to blame for what happened to me. I got shot down. It could have happened to anyone at anytime."

"I'm partially to blame for taking away a little bit of your confidence. It was the same with Zak. I didn't kill him, but I didn't save him, either."

Lee bumped her lightly with his shoulder. "I can't see you being that floored by my death. Not after all the grief I put you through."

"I refused to let them give you a proper wartime burial. There was a coffin symbolizing the sacrifice you made. I knew you weren't there, but I still clung to it desperately. I wouldn't let it be flushed for weeks. How's that for not being floored?"

"Thank gods that I wasn't actually dead," he joked.

"This is serious, Lee. I wanted you to understand that as much as I seem to find joy in pointing out each and every one of your shortcomings, I don't care. I don't want to mourn the loss of even one of those shortcomings ever again."

"I'm not doing this on purpose," he said. When she gave him a knowing look, his mind flew back to the day before their crash landing. "Well, maybe not anymore."

She smirked and rested her chin on his shoulder. "Plus I would kind of miss them. You're kind of cute when you're being all flawed."

Lee stared at her a moment before clearing his throat and pointing to the device she still clutched in her hand. "I modified the comms slightly so that the power is conserved. We can use them at a short distance for hours. The downfall is Galactica won't be able to pick up on the frequency. We'll have moved our position, and there won't be a way for them to find us.

Smiling, Kara stood up. Topic closed, she guessed. It was nice to return to what life deemed normal. Avoidance of anything emotionally significant and frakked-up silence that spoke volumes. She was home.

Clearing her throat, she looked around. "So how far are we from the crashdown site?"

"About a mile."

"We should set up a perimeter. Considering toasters are probably crawling over every single inch of this planet, we should make sure we don't have any unwanted companions nearby."

"Agreed," Lee said. His gaze fell to the flight suit that was still hanging from her waist, halfway pulled down. "You're probably going to want to take that off."

"I was wondering when you'd try to get me out of my clothes," she teased even while she slid the suit down to her ankles. She knew that he only meant she would get hot if she wore it walking a perimeter, but she wasn't about to let an opportunity to annoy him go by unnoticed.

Lee chose to ignore her snide remark like always. Instead, he went into his typical all-business mode. Kara couldn't help but feel a little happy at the familiarity of the situation. He was acting normal for the first time since he had fought his way back to the Fleet.

She kneeled down to check the knife she kept secured to the side of her right flight boot. Like Lee with his battle comms, it was her own form of extra preparation. "So how are we going to go about this? I assume you have a plan."

"I figure a one mile radius will do just fine for now. We both march one mile out opposite ways, mark where we started, and circle around until we hit the other's mark. Then we met back here. The circle will include the crash site in case Galactica focuses on that in their search for us. I figure we can keep in constant communication through the comms should the SAR show up while we're setting the perimeter."

"You need to get out more," she said.

He looked around before smirking at her. "I thought we were out."

She rolled her eyes and attached the comm firmly to her left ear. That was when she noticed him wincing slightly as he did the same. "Is something wrong?"

"It's nothing."

"Stop trying to be strong, Lee, and tell me why your face just erupted with pain."

"My hands got a little burnt when I pulled the canopy off of your Viper."

Kara nodded, taking in this new bit of information, and held out her hands. "Let me see."

"No, it's not that bad," he said, already taking a few steps away from her.

She grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "I said, let me see your hands, Lee."

Sighing, he held them out and tried to ignore the look of alarm that spread across her face. "They hadn't been hurting that much the past few hours. They just started to pang a little a few minutes ago. Nothing that big."

"Nothing that big? Lee, your hands probably have at least second degree burns on them. You need to get them treated."

"Well, let me just go off and find the nearest medical infirmary on Kobol then, Kara. Because I'm sure there are about fifty within walking distance and the Cylons won't really care if I just… wander… off…" His words faded out as he noticed her cutting the one leg of her pants with the knife she always carried with her on missions. "What are you doing?"

Sighing, she stood up with the piece of material in her hand. "I'm going to field dress your left hand so it doesn't get any worse. I wish I could do both of your hands, but I don't want you to have to worry about how you'd fire a gun beneath all that material. Can't have you impeded in any way should a Cylon show up along your little perimeter search."

He stared as she went silent and followed whatever maternal instinct had been awakened inside of her. Her hand grasped his gently. He watched her absentmindedly shake a wayward lock of hair out of her eyes while focusing on the rhythm of her movements. Almost as if she were moving to a distant song, she hummed softly as she wrapped the small piece of cloth around his blistered hand. When she ran out of material, she still held his hand tightly within both of hers and glanced up.

"Kara?" he said tentatively as her eyes bore into him with surprising accuracy.

"I can't believe you got burnt just to get me out of that cockpit."

The way she was staring at him was making him nervous. She always seemed to have a knack at doing that.

"You carried me with your hands like this," she said, still staring at him.

"I barely noticed." His breath was starting to become more shallow as he suddenly took notice of how close they were standing. Her eyes were right in line with his, and her lips, he only had to move a few inches to bring them to his own. The way she was looking at him right now made them seem like the only option he could take.

"We need to get off this planet, Lee," she whispered before he could follow his instincts and lean in. She stared at him a moment longer before letting his hand slid out of hers.

"You think I don't know that." He smiled at her and shrugged.

A small twig broke somewhere in the distance, pulling them out of whatever haze had kept them staring at each other. Kara cleared her throat and turned away from him. "All right. Let's get this done. I want to take another nap. My head's starting to pound again."

He gave her a small look of concern before nodding and walking off in the opposite direction.

Kara found herself unable to move as she watched him walk away. A feeling of foreboding was washing over her as Lee got farther and farther from her. She felt like she was saying goodbye without even saying a word.

"Lee?" she yelled as the knot in her stomach intensified.

He turned to look back at her. When she didn't say anything, he smiled and pointed to his ear. His voice echoed through her. "Don't worry, Kara. I'm right with you."

"Right," she said, giving him a small wave before starting to walk. She looked over her shoulder after a few steps. He was still standing in the same spot, smirking and shaking his head.

Kara continued on, scolding herself for being so ridiculous. She forced herself to keep from turning for at least one hundred feet. When she finally broke down and looked, he was gone. The woods had gotten unusually quiet. "Lee?" she whispered into the earpiece.

"Yeah?"

She let out a deep breath. "Just checking."

"Are you going to do that every minute we're apart? Because it's going to get annoying."

"I'm sorry," she said, rolling her eyes. She stepped lightly over a fallen tree trunk. Lee obviously didn't need her worrying about him every second. He was more than capable of taking care of himself. "You know, if you keep talking, I won't have to keep checking."

"What do you expect me to say?"

She could hear the hint of exasperation in his voice. It made her want to laugh. "Come up with something. Tell me more about your time away from Galactica."

"When I was on Caprica or when I was with the Cylons?"

"Either."

"That's not the kind of thing you discuss over a comm, Kara."

"I was just curious," she said, narrowing her eyes as a twig snapped in front of her. "You don't have to be defensive."

"I'm not being defensive. I just don't want to have to talk about what happened to me every single time we're alone together. There are a lot of other things that we could discuss besides my time away from the Fleet."

"All right. All right. I get it. You don't want to talk about it."

There was another noise coming from the direction of the twig snap. Kara wasn't sure if her mind was turning it into something mechanical or if it was really a Cylon. "I think I have something, Lee."

"Don't engage," he hissed. "You're in no condition to fight."

She saw something flash by in her peripheral vision and ducked behind a tree. "I'm perfectly capable of fighting."

"You crashlanded earlier today in case you've forgotten."

"I came out in one piece."

"Only because I was there."

"I would have been fine on my own."

"You would have died on your own."

"Bullshit."

"It's the truth."

"I've been through this before on my own."

"And you wrecked your knee."

"It got better."

"Only after a lot of whining and rehabilitation."

"I don't whine."

"You're whining right now."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"I hate you."

Lee let out a small laugh. "Yeah, yeah. So how's that disturbance going? See any toasters?"

"Frak." She could feel her face getting red as the embarrassment of what she had just done washed over her. "I didn't check it out."

"Too busy arguing with me to do your job. And you wonder why I told you not to engage."

Anger washed over her as she realized he had been purposefully bickering with her so that she would forget to go against his advice and see if the disturbance was indeed a Cylon. Deciding she was becoming a little too angry to keep talking to him, she chose not to yell about how he had tricked her. Plus, there was still a lot of ground to cover on this perimeter establishment. When that was over, she could get angry and scream at him face to face.

A wicked thought occurred to her as she stood up from her crouch behind a large tree. A fist to the gut should convince him that she was perfectly capable of engaging an enemy target. Smiling, she pulled the knife out of her boot and started carving into a tree. He wanted a marker to show where she started the perimeter circle? She'd give him a marker. Lee should appreciate the 'frak you' she was cutting into the bark when he reached the end point of the perimeter later.

"I hit my mile mark," she told him.

"So did I."

Frak. He never did accept being second place without a fight.

Kara kept the knife in her hand as she continued walking. She was still unsure about those noises she had heard before. They were making her uneasy. She was hesitantly starting to admit that maybe Lee was right when he said the crashlanding had taken a little more out of her than she wanted to acknowledge. Her head was starting to pound with the pressure of being on her own.

"Lee? Can you keep talking?" she asked hesitantly.

"You really are spooked."

"I'm okay," she said stubbornly. "I just wanted to ask you a question." When he didn't respond, she took that as a go ahead. Which made her rack her brain for something she could ask him that would keep him talking. "Help me understand something. I know you really don't want to talk about it, but I just don't understand something about your return to the Fleet. If you thought the Cylons would come after you, why did you follow their supposed plan for you and come back? The way you say it, they clearly told you that they weren't done messing with you. Returning to us added a lot more danger to the mix."

"Brutal with the words like always."

Kara had realized that herself. She had just wanted to get him a little riled up so that he wouldn't stop talking for at least a few minutes. Maybe she had pushed it with the reference to what kind of person he used to be. "I don't meant to be. I just wanted to say that doing something like that is not like you. I want to know if there's something you're still holding back from me. I care about you so please don't brush it off with a joke. I want to hear an answer."

"Are you asking me this as a concerned CAG or as a bored pilot on a recon mission?"

She scowled as she stepped in a small puddle of mud. Frak. As if she wasn't dirty enough. "Listen. You know that I'm a little nervous right now. This is something I was curious about and I wanted to keep you talking, but that doesn't even matter anymore. Now I want to know the answer because you're obviously holding something back. Which means you're protecting someone."

He sighed on the other half of the comm, obviously getting his mental bearings before answering. "For starters, there is something I haven't told you. There's some haziness in my mind about what went on there. I remember the pain. I remember the suffering through day after day, test after test. A lot of the bad stuff is easy to recall."

"You remember your mistake," she pointed out hesitantly.

"Yes. I remember that. The pain of knowing what I had done seems to give me a sort of clarity. I can remember the moments of guilt and hurt that the Cylons created for me. I can remember the harsh truths I was told, the pain they caused me. Sometimes when I think about it, it isn't hard to imagine why I didn't think twice about coming back to you."

There was a double meaning to his words that she chose to ignore. "You still didn't answer why you came back to the Fleet when you knew the danger involved."

"Honestly, Kara, I really don't want to be discussing this with you right now. I promise we will talk about this later when we're safe on Galactica."

She could hear him getting mad at her. It was a subtle shift in the tone of his voice that most people couldn't even pick up on. But she had had plenty of practice in identifying it which meant she knew this was usually the time to back off a little. Problem was Kara Thrace wasn't really one for sticking with the usual.

"It doesn't add up. I know that you care about us, but you came back to the Fleet when it could have possibly damned us all. And now you don't even want to admit that you may have made a mistake by coming back. It's odd. I've had quite a few people tell me that you seem to have an agenda you're following that no one else is privy to."

"And what agenda would that be?"

She kicked the ground lightly with her foot as she kept walking. The harsh tones had calmed down a little, and she was actually feeling a little better about being on her own on Kobol. "Everyone's afraid that the Cylons got to you. That maybe you're just like Boomer. We wouldn't even see it coming until it was too late. The way things have been headed since your return, I'm starting to wonder if there's some sort of truth behind the theories going around."

Kara knew she was intentionally goading him. She knew they were standing on the precipice of something important and this was the only way lately to get him to open up to her. She hated doing it, but she hated him closing himself off from her even more.

"You don't sound like you wanted me to come back, Kara." She could feel the pain in his voice and wondered if maybe she had taken it a step too far this time. Sure, he had to talk about the issues the Cylons had created, but she didn't want to painfully extract the revelations. "Was that whole story about dealing so badly with my death a lie?"

Kara could hear something shift inside of him as his tone rose to mock her. She kept forgetting how much more they still had to repair between them before things got back to what was once normal. They would have these moments of peace that made her forget how much he had changed. But there was always an argument to bring that small detail back to the surface.

At the moment, the current detail on the top of her mind concerned the fact that, unlike her, maybe Lee wasn't willing to work towards that goal of repairing what they had lost. If that was true, then it really rubbed her the wrong way. "Tell me why you came back. Why return to the Fleet? The truth please."

"You forget. I didn't know the Fleet was going to be in the airspace above Kobol."

His words hung in the air between them. Kara wasn't sure she had heard him right. Was he implying that he never intended to come back home to the Fleet? What had he planned on doing in that Raider then? He really had never told her where he would have gone if the ships were not floating in the space above Kobol.

Something shifted slightly in his voice. "It's rather rich that you're scolding me for acting without thinking when it seems to be your specialty. And I never really ask you for explanations. I just accepted you were the kind of girl to hit before you thought or frak before you felt." He let out a icy laugh. "Funny how you could be so full of emotion and so lacking at the same time."

Her eyes stung as his words cut to the core. She had thought this severe coldness and brutality inside him was disappearing. But it seemed to be rearing its ugly head. She knew she had made a mistake, pressing this issue, now. The fear she had felt by being alone hadn't really made her think out her actions, and there was really no way to go back now. "I don't think my personal life has anything to do with what's wrong with you."

"You think something's wrong with me?"

"That's not what I meant," she said, backtracking her words as she continued on around the perimeter. She had to be about halfway done by now.

He let out a long sigh from wherever he was. "I think that you don't seem so scared anymore. Maybe it would be better if we just stopped the whole conversation thing now before it gets out of hand. We all know how impulsive you get."

Kara knew it was a mistake, but she couldn't stop the words if she had tried. "Frak--" A sound of a gunshot cut her off. She instinctively ducked even though she knew the bullets weren't anywhere close to her position. They had only echoed in her ear.

"Lee? What the frak is going on?"

He wasn't responding. There were more gunshots coming over her comm.

"Apollo, answer me. Tell me what's happening."

"Kara, you need to get back to my downed Viper now. Take it to Galactica."

She could hear the strain in his voice. The knowledge that he could be frightened of something made her terrified. She couldn't handle this. "What the frak are you talking about?"

"There's been a group of Cylons circling me for the past few minutes. They're moving in."

"What?" she yelled as the gunfire got significantly louder. "There has been a group of Cylons with you for that long and you didn't even say a word? Frak, Lee! I could have already been halfway to where you are by now."

Then it suddenly clicked. He had been purposefully trying to piss her off this whole time. He wanted her angry so that when he suggested silence she would agree. He didn't want her running headfirst into danger like they both knew she would do. The Cylons were catching on that the two pilots were on Kobol, and he was protecting her from danger. All the horrible things he had said, all the horrible things he had made her think, it was all to keep her safe.

"I'm not going to explain it. Just go," he screamed.

Reverberation filtered through the headset, and the comm line cut off for a moment. When it came back, the observations of what was happening came to her as if she were completely detached. Detached from the chaos and detached from how close this situation was coming to upsetting her whole world. She distinctly heard shots being fired on both sides. There was a slight pounding in rhythm through the comm. Lee's breath was filtering through the comm in a more ragged pattern. He must be running now.

Kara stood frozen in the middle of the unmarked path she had been following. She had two choices. She could listen to Lee, who probably knew what he was talking about, and fly to Galactica, returning with help and hoping he had found a way to stay safe while she was gone. Or she could say frak you to his stupid plan and save him herself right now.

It was a difficult choice. Listen to her heart or listen to her head. She had to make the decision now, though. There wasn't time to waste either way.

"Frak that!" she hissed to herself. When did she ever do the rational thing? "Hang on, Lee," she yelled into the comm as she started to run. "I'm on my way."

"No, Kara. You need to get out of here before it's too late."

"I'm not that far away. I can make it if you just hold on a little longer."

"Don't do this."

"I'm not listening to you anymore," she said.

"Kara! I don't want you to do this."

"No choice."

"Kara!" he yelled before the gunshots starting picking up again. "I am going to kill you."

"As long as you're still alive to do it, then I don't mind." Picking up speed, she started running as fast as she could in a straight dissection of the perimeter they had been setting up. She had two miles to cover and she had no time to do it in.

Normally, the soft cadence of her feet touching the ground briefly before they moved to make another step forward would have been a soothing experience. Now it was nerve-wracking how slow her pace was becoming. She knew she needed to push herself faster if she wanted to get to Lee in time to protect him from whatever the frak the Cylons wanted.

Her mind flashed back through all the times in her life that Lee had tried to protect. There were too many to properly count, but she had no doubt that they all had one thing in common. Each time, he had been right. Things were always better off when she didn't get involved. That bar fight on Picon. The last day of exams at the Academy. Breaking down his confidence as a form of motivation before the attack on the Cylon tylium mine. Trying to repair their relationship and reconnecting enough so that he felt the need to follow her down to this gods-forsaken planet.

By now, she really would have thought she would have learned her lesson. When Lee decided to protect her by keeping her out of the heat of battle, she should listen.

Her thoughts broke for a second as she found herself climbing over a pile of fallen trees that were downed right in the middle of her path. The jagged wood cut at her hands, but she ignored the pain and pulled herself up a few feet. Her comm slipped out of her ear halfway up the pile, and she calmly slid it into her military tanks. She didn't even have the time to waste in order to put the thing back in place. Besides, all Lee would be saying over it was she needed to take that working Viper as far from Kobol as she could.

Kara paused at the top of heap to see if she could see any visuals on what was happening. She saw the crash site where her frakked Viper and Lee's pristine Viper rested next to one another, but she quickly looked away. Those ships weren't going to help her with what she needed right now.

There was a slight glimmer of something metal about a mile ahead and to the left. Deciding this was her best lead, she braced herself and jumped down from the top, landing squarely on her feet and pushed the comm back into her ear.

The sounds of the gunfight still rang through her headpiece with one noticeable absence. Lee wasn't talking or yelling anymore. And she was starting to get scared that she wouldn't get there in time.

"How you holding up, Apollo?" she called as she began to run again. She made no effort to be quiet. If a Cylon decided to engage her in a fight at this moment, they were going to be very sorry. She was not in the mood.

"Get the frak out of her now, Kara. There's no way you could help."

She shook her head at him, even though she knew there was no way he could see it. "You're so stupid," she whispered mostly to herself. It didn't matter to her if there was no way she could help because in her mind, there was no way that she could choose not to help. This was Lee. "You are so fraking' stupid! Do you hear me?" she screamed.

Even though her lungs were screaming, she pushed herself harder. She had heard the tone in his voice falter. Lee was losing hope quickly.

Kara clung to the notion that all the times she had disobeyed his wishes had been for a reason. The whole damn Fleet knew that they were about as close as two pilots could get. They watched each other's backs no matter what. It was inappropriate and inconvenient, but that's the way it was.

She wasn't about to change that now.

There was a river coming up in front of her, and for a second, she wondered if there was a way she could avoid having to cross it. As soon as she thought it, she knew how stupid she was being. Lee was in trouble, and she wanted to avoid getting wet?

"Really fraking stupid," she hissed to herself as she began wading in. The water was a lot colder and wilder than it looked from outside. It took her a few seconds to get her bearings and begin the quick swim across. She kept her head out of the water as best she could so that she wouldn't lose sight of where she was supposed to be heading.

Almost as if the gods knew how important she felt staying dry was, her right foot caught on some long buried root or rock on the bottom of the water as she neared the other side, and she felt her legs come out from under her. The water tossed her around for a few frantic moments, and eventually she was flung hard against the bottom of the river. As her body twisted and turned against the current, her vision went white under the pressure of the water on her face.

The river flew into a softer patch, and Kara was able to pull herself up for enough time to get her bearings. The river bank was only a few seconds swim away. It was within her reach, she decided and dug for all the strength inside of her. After the final push to get out of the last few inches of freezing water, she dragged herself up to her knees as the shallow water lapped around her. There was a faint crackle in her ear as the comm sputtered out.

"Couldn't the gods have made this a little easier on me?" she panted, grabbing the earpiece out of her ear and staring at it. It was dead. And Lee wasn't around to fix it for her this time.

That didn't change that she still had a job to do. Standing up, Kara turned around in a few, quick circles as the panic began to set in. She had lost her bearings, and she had lost her ability to hear him. No doubt about it, she was really on her own now if she couldn't hear Lee.

"Frakked like always," she muttered to herself. It really shouldn't surprise her anymore.

"Lee! I need you to give me something here," she screamed as loud as she could muster, looking in any and all directions. "Lee! Come on!"

Kara smacked the comm a few times with the back of her palm in hopes that it would snap back to life. When it didn't, she threw it on the ground in frustration. Her hands came up to rub her face as she realized she was going to have to pick a random direction and hope she was right.

Deciding that the bank she was on didn't look familiar, she figured the river had mercifully flung her to the side to which she was originally aiming. That made this a little easier. Now she only had to pick left, right, or straight. That was a one in three chance. Not bad odds, but still not good enough in her mind when the prize to be won was Lee's life.

One split-second decision later as images of what Lee was in the middle of flashed through her head, she found herself running in a right diagonal to the river.

"Lords of Kobol, please help to guide my feet in the right direction. Lee Adama is a good man who has done nothing that could ever anger you. He doesn't deserve to be hurt like this." Her voice caught in her throat as she realized the tears pooling in her eyes had begun to fall. She was losing hope.

"Please!" she screamed to no one in particular.

In response, Kara heard a guttural scream from behind her that froze her in her tracks. The next second she heard the scream again, only this time it was her name being yelled.

"Thank gods," she said, turning around and running in the opposite direction. She was close now. All he had to do was hang on for a few more minutes and she would be there. Each yard she ran, the sounds of gunshots got louder, spurring her to push herself harder, to make herself run faster.

And then, it stopped cold.

Kara's heart caught in her chest as the weight of the silence weighed down on her. She pulled the gun out of holster, pleased to see it had fared better than the comm, and crouched down as she inched her way closer to where she thought the shots originated.

Using a tree for cover, she peeked around to see her worst fear was true. There were a handful of mechanical Cylons and a couple of the human version all clustered around Lee. He was on his knees in the middle of their circle, bloody and beaten. Kara felt her grip on the gun tighten in anger. The toasters had sent the blond model who had tried to infiltrate Galactica in the beginning stages of their escape and another model Kara had never seen before. He looked to be young and about as attractive as a woman could wish. Enough muscle to pose a problem, but nothing she felt she couldn't handle in the end.

Her mind held on to the satisfaction that she was not too late as she sat crouched behind the tree. She could still save him. All it would take was her single-handedly killing more Cylons than any other person in the history of humanity. She watched the pretty blond Cylon reach out to punch Lee hard, flinging his body down into the dirt.

"No problem," she growled, cocking the safety off her gun.

Knowing that realistically she had no chance, she took a deep breath, ducked out from behind the tree, and fired off a few well aimed shots. The first and second hit one of the mechanical Cylons in the small vulnerable spot below the metal chin, and he exploded taking out two of his counterparts. Her third shot hit the blond Cylon squarely in lower abdomen, and Kara gloated at the pain she saw come up in the toaster's eyes.

Three and a half down. Two and a half to go.

Only now they knew she was here. Letting out a sharp scream, she continued firing, focusing on the last surviving mechanical Cylon. She realized the two human Cylons were hanging back. Lee had mentioned they liked to do their little tests and experiments. Maybe they were testing her now.

"Letting your little pet do the dirty work?" she screamed in frustration. Her shots weren't working to take down this toaster, and she was running out of room as it got closer to where she stood. She really wished she was in her Viper right now. One quick shot and this whole area would be toast.

Kara took stock of her environment while continuing to rapidly fire at the approaching machine. Lee was still face down in the dirt with the two human Cylons standing over him. He was obviously hurt if he couldn't even pick himself up from a punch. She had plenty of cover provided by the trees around her to hide behind as the Cylons were firing upon her. But she had to be careful because any stray shot could send a tree falling down in her direction.

Her eyes lit up as she suddenly realized that was exactly what she needed. She turned the gun away from the Cylon running at her and up into the trees and silently hoped they wouldn't seize the opening to get in a few unblocked shots on her. Firing as many rounds as she could, she heard the branches snap as the shots broke off pieces. Within seconds she was rewarded with a series of large branches falling to knock heavily into the hunk of metal currently trying to kill her. The last shot she fired took down a rotting tree trunk that pinned the Cylon to the ground. Two shots later and the fight was done.

Kara would have loved to have a moment to catch her breath, but the two Cylons of human physical perfection were now steadily coming towards her. Test over, it would seem.

She knew from the stories she had managed to gleam from Lee that the blonde woman preferred hand-to-hand combat rather than guns. As for the man, she wasn't sure. No, one had ever encountered him before.

"You two must think the world of me if you have to gang up together to take me out," she mocked them. She threw her gun to the ground. Its cartridge had run out almost immediately after the robotic Cylons were destroyed. It took a lot of bullets to kill a toaster.

"This is not your destiny, Kara Thrace," the woman said, giving her a smile as she slowly sauntered her way over.

"I'm not the kind of girl to just sit back and accept the bad hand fate has dealt me," she said with a shrug. Even though it was the blonde woman talking to her, her eyes stayed squarely on the male Cylon. He was new, and she had a job to do. If she and Lee made it out of this one alive, then she would need to be able to describe every single detail of this man so that the Fleet can ferret out any within their ships.

It was a good thing she was so concentrated, too. Because as the woman toaster rattled on about prophecies and destiny repeating itself and the singular god they believed in, the man moved in to attack. Kara dodged him easily and started circling around with him.

"Why do you fight? What have you to defend?" he asked with a smirk.

"You obviously don't know me if you have to ask why I fight," she said with a mocking laugh.

"Fighting is what intrigues us," the blonde Cylon said as she fell in line with her counterpart to cautiously circle around Kara.

"I thought the man lying over there is what intrigues you." The female just shrugged at her, and Kara took the small moment to look over at Lee. He still hadn't moved from the blow he had been dealt, but that didn't mean he was down and out. A tiny voice in the back of her head pointed out that it could mean he was never going to be getting up, but she quickly squelched it.

The blond Cylon cut in at her real quick but did not engage. Kara smirked as her opponents looked surprised that she hadn't flinched. She had just buckled down for a quick second to brace herself. It was from the years of experience she kept telling these machines she had. Hand to hand combat was where she excelled.

"You seem distracted," the man pointed out with a smile.

"I'm trying to decide what to do with the rest of my day once I've killed you." Kara's mind had begun to spin a little as they went through this sort of dance to see who would make the first move. She wasn't stupid. The two Cylons were slowly circling her into a position in which she had no choice but to engage. Normally, she wouldn't play by her opponents' rules, but she really had no other option right now.

And then it came. The blond Cylon punched out with her right fist, aiming to practically knock Kara's head straight off her shoulders. Kara dodged and managed to get in a few blows to the woman's midsection where the bullet wound was still trickling with blood. The bad thing about this risky move was she took her eyes off the man for just long enough that he got behind her. His arm pulled back against her neck, choking her, as her eyes glazed over from the pain.

That annoying little voice in her head pointed out that she hadn't lasted that long. Her mind flashed with the images of Lee protecting her from this. He had wanted to keep her safe even though he knew it was probably likely that without her help he would die by the hands of the Cylons. And not immediately, either. They would drag out his death until it was the only thing he wished for, the only thing he could possibly ever want. Freedom would mean nothing. Death was all there is.

Kara never wanted to imagine Lee being put through that. Which is where she pulled the strength to tell that little voice in her head to frak off as she slammed her head violently back until it made contact with the Cylon's nose. There was a rewarding crack as his nose broke, and she could practically smell the blood as it began to flow out of the broken orifice. His grip loosened almost immediately.

The sheer violence of her move only served to goad her on. She wasted no time in delivering a kick to the battered Cylon's head, watching him fall down to the ground for one blessed moment. Just in time, she saw the woman Cylon's fist coming in towards her head and pulled herself away from the punch so that it only grazed the side of her cheek. It stung a little, but she had learned to compartmentalize the pain of a fight a long time before she had even dreamed of being a Colonial Pilot.

The woman pulled a knife out from the belt she wore securely around her hips. "The man you seek to save does not need you. He is no longer on this plane of existence. Why do you continue to fight?"

"That's not going to intimidate me," Kara spit out, even though she knew talking would only distract her from the objective. Silently, she was thanking the gods that it was not a gun that had been pulled. She didn't know why the machines hadn't just shot her and been done with it by now. Her mind was almost as battered and bruised as her body, which made it impossible to consider anything farther than what would happen in the next second.

She watched the blonde pass the knife over to the male as he struggled up off the ground. There was a gleam to her eyes which told Kara that there might be more to the move than she could see at the moment. "Your little knife doesn't intimidate me, either," she pointed out after a moment, dodging a few careless swipes from the Cylon in front of her. They were still testing each other's boundaries. "You can't have a proper bar fight without a knife being drawn. And trust me. I've seen bigger."

The man laughed. "I don't believe you're as tough as you say.

She let out a small smirk. "Well, why don't I just prove you wrong?"

Keeping her distance, it only took Kara a few seconds to kick the knife right out of her opponent's hand. It went flying off into the ground somewhere to her right. She filed its location away and kept right on dodging the blows thrown at her from what seemed like every direction possible.

Kara managed to control the fighting in her own way, by taking a punch just as often as she dealt them. The fighting stayed easy with her only throwing in a few punches or well-aimed kicks to the groins whenever it was necessary. She was trying to gather information on her opponents. This wasn't just another drunken bar fight where she could end the altercation as soon as she was bored. It was hard to kill one Cylon on your own without any sort of firearm. Killing two was unheard of.

Unheard of, but not impossible.

The blond was the more impetuous of the two. She let her emotions take control of her actions. If Kara landed a punch, the Cylon would just come at her twice as hard. It was almost as if each hit was chipping away at the toaster's pride.

The man tended to sit back and observe, too. She knew he was trying to take in her fighting style, and she wished him all the luck. It was such a motley crew of so many different styles she had picked up along the path her life took that she wasn't even sure what it would be called.

A punch from the woman landed squarely on her jaw. She tried to shake it off and keep fighting, but it was beginning to become hard. The small aches were beginning to add up and aid in slowing her down. She was human, unlike her opponents. Eventually she would tire and they would finish her off. The faint taste of blood was becoming familiar to her as she licked where her lip had been split open. She was going to have to do something and do it quick before the Cylons realized she was faltering.

The opening came when the female misjudged her fellow machine's position. She kicked Kara squarely in the gut and sent her flying straight back into him. Normally, Kara would have fought against the hit and only staggered back a few steps. In this case, that would have probably set her out for the final blow delivered by the male lingering on the outskirts of the battle. So she went with the momentum of the kick and used it to topple straight into the machine behind her. Her eyes flashed on the knife the Cylon had dropped earlier in the fight as it lay on the ground right before she felt the length of her body connect with his. She knew if she timed this just right, it could work out.

His naturally heavier weight landed directly on top of her as they twisted in the fall to the hard ground. The breath left her lungs in one quick burst, and she suddenly found herself afraid that it would not make its way back. She had felt a all-too familiar snap of bone breaking upon impact and judged that she had just broken at least a handful of ribs. That added to the pain breathing now caused, and Kara suddenly knew she only had a few more seconds before she lost any sort of upper hand she had fought to gain.

She looked up into the Cylon's eyes as he continued to lay on top of her and was surprised to see a human expression of pain reflected back. The humanity of the machines still unnerved her. She noted the knife she had effectively lodged deep in his side as they had hit the ground and could feel the hot liquid of his blood as it dripped down onto her own body. He had rolled them right over the knife before they had fallen to a stop where they now lay. It was exactly as she had planned it, but it still didn't ease the brutality of what she still had to do.

The suffering of the male machine gave Kara the opening she had been looking for. She pushed the pain of a few broken ribs and no oxygen left in her lungs to the side and staggered up to her knees. Frantically grabbing at the Cylon lying in front of her, she yanked his head up into the nook of her left arm and placed her right hand on his left cheek. Once she felt the weight of his body settled into hers, she gave the blond Cylon the wicked smile she had become infamous for.

And then she pulled her hand to the right while moving her arm to the left in a vicious motion. The Cylon's neck snapped with a satisfying crack, and Kara let the body sink back down onto the ground.

"You may be machines in a lot of ways, but the humanity you so desperately want is what kills you in the end," she said softly as she sank back down off her knees. The pain of breathing was making her vision fade. She was fighting a losing battle.

"You have only killed one of us," the blond said calmly, smiling down at her. Finally, she pulled a gun out of the waistline of her pants and trained it on the Viper pilot, lying open in front of her. "A great feat, but not good enough."

"So kill me and be done with it," Kara taunted from her position on the ground.

The blond quickly kicked her hard in the face, and Kara tasted the dirt and grass beneath her body as her mouth jarred sharply against the ground. "God does not want you to die. You have a part to play in all of this. Your insubordination is forcing me to play a part that was never intended for me."

Kara managed to push herself up a few inches with her hands so that she could glare at the woman who was going to be her executioner. "You treat me with an awful lot of importance for my not being the one you wanted to retrieve so badly."

The blond Cylon gave her a strange look and tilted her head to the side, almost as if she didn't understand what Kara was implying. Kara watched as the gun steadied in the Cylon's hand. She could practically feel the shot coming. It would be the well-aimed delivery of the bullet that would kill her. The Cylons seemed to like her enough to want to end the suffering life had given her. They would not drag things out. The fact that she was having such rational thoughts in her head as her death loomed over her was not surprising. She was not rational in life, so then it made sense she would be rational in death.

A shot echoed through the air as Kara finally made a silent peace with herself and resigned to death. She closed her eyes and said a soft prayer to the Lords of Kobol, asking only that she be allowed to see Lee one last time before she was taken to the hell she knew she deserved.

When her pain neither intensified nor weakened, she opened her eyes. The last remaining machine stood in front of her, still confidently aiming the gun at Kara's head. The Cylon looked down at her intended victim in bewilderment as a circle of red rapidly spread on her chest. The confusion was mirrored back in Kara's face as they both remembered that she had no gun in her hand.

Kara could see the last bits of life slip out of the Cylon's eyes as she crumpled to the earth, seemingly without reason. Where the machine had just stood, she could see what she had missed before. Lee was leaning against a tree directly in front of her, smoking gun clasped tightly in his hand.

"They said you were dead."

"I have a habit of not dying," he pointed out. The fact he was struggling rather hard to form the words didn't slip by her unnoticed. She just chose to ignore it for as long as she could. They were both hurting. It didn't need to be acknowledged.

"I'm glad you're so resilient," she said, dragging herself to her feet.

There was a moment between the two of them where Kara knew they were both remembering how things had once been. And then Lee's face contorted in pain as he slid down the tree towards the ground. She reached his side before he could even make it halfway. Her arm slipped easily around his waist and pulled him back up to her side. The broken ribs ached in silent protest, but she ignored them.

"Lee, you got to stay with me here. We're almost halfway home."

"How do you figure?" he said with a laugh.

Her heart leapt a little when his voice came out just a little stronger than before. "Well, we just killed the first round of Cylons who found us. That means we got that little plot point in our adventure done. Now it's just the waiting for the search and rescue that has to be done. Do you really think the gods would be cruel enough to send more Cylons our way?"

"Yes," he hissed through his teeth. She could tell the pain was intensifying as the reality of what they had gone through set in. However, his voice was holding strong. As long as she kept him talking, she might not have to worry about how badly he had been hurt by the machines.

Kara started slowly pulling their joined bodies towards where the forest was denser. The movement was jolting and slow, but there would be less of a chance of discovery if they went farther in. Her knee creaked under the stress of her carrying two hundred pounds more than normal. She silently cursed her body for not being stronger when she needed it.

Lee hissed in pain, his thoughts obviously running parallel to hers. "I hate having to depend on you."

"And I just love carrying your heavy ass all over this planet," she said sarcastically. "But it's what has to be done. So, I guess the real question is do you have any ideas of what we can do?"

"There's a cave about five hundred feet into the forest. I saw it when I was setting up the perimeter. It'll provide cover."

Kara rolled her eyes. "Even when you're half dead, you have a plan."

"I'm more than half dead," he hissed. If he hadn't been given her one of his famous half-smiles, she would have been worried.

Frak that notion. No matter what he did, she was worried. They were both as hurt as you could get without dying, and there still was no sign of rescue. Plus, the Cylons knew that Lee was on the planet. They were going to send another squad to locate them. They wouldn't survive a second fight.

"How are your hands holding up?" she asked.

"They're not really hurting that much anymore, which makes me worried. I have to be in a lot of pain for the burn to be dull already."

She nodded, knowing that was probably the only thing she could do right now without betraying how much she desperately wanted to cry. It was important to stay strong no matter how bad things got. Lee had always been the one to do that when times got tough on Galactica. Now that she was the CAG and he was too hurt to remember, she would have to take up the burden. She had told him she had changed. Now it was time to prove it.

"Kara, there's something I have to tell you."

Lee's voice startled her enough to make her steps falter, and both of their aching bodies took the opportunity to slid to the ground in a heap. "Sorry," she said, pulling her head up high enough to look at him before letting it hit the ground again.

"No problem."

She smiled to herself. Why was it when they were hurting it always seemed like they did it together? Letting out a small sigh, she stared up into the sky above her. "So what do you have to tell me?"

"I lied to you."

"You've been lying to me for years, Lee. Why the need to confess now?"

"Because you need to know the truth if you're going to do what I ask you."

"And that would be?"

"I need you to take me to the cave like I said. But then you have to get in that Viper and head back to Galactica."

Kara rolled over so that her left arm and leg rested on Lee's body. She stared at him with a harsh glare in her eyes. "For the last time, I am not abandoning you. It's you and me against the world."

"That's the problem. The Cylons don't want me, Kara. They want you."

"What the frak are you talking about?"

"Technically, I didn't really lie about it. I didn't realize the truth of what the toasters wanted until right before we got into our Vipers in the hangar. That's why I tried to keep you away from here when they were attacking. The Cylons were just going to use me as bait to get you to show yourself. That's the only purpose I have to them anymore. I'm just the bait." He looked down at her, and the pleading in his eyes made Kara want to look away. But she didn't. She held strong. "It's you they want. So you need to take the small window of time we've been given and you need to get yourself out of here."

She shook her head. "I'm not leaving with you."

"Then you will die."

She smacked him hard across the cheek. The effort cost her, but the pissed off look he sent her way made it all worth it. "Are you a fraking idiot? If I go, then you're dead. The Cylons will either kill you right now or they'll keep you locked away to use as bait to get at me another time."

"I don't care."

"You selfless bastard," she mocked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"There are things more important than my life."

"I hardly think I qualify."

"I know a lot of people who would beg to differ."

Not knowing what to say to that, she cleared her throat and pushed herself up off of him and into a sitting position. "So, I don't understand. What makes you think the Cylons want me and not you?"

"I'm still not sure. The memories of what they did to me are completely clear yet hazy at the same time. Pain helps, though."

"Pain?"

"Well, sometimes it makes things a lot clearer. Other times, the pain dulls the memory. I think it has something to do with the amount of pain I was in when the events took place originally."

Kara glanced around at where they lay as her practical side kicked in. It was in a rather open area in the forest, easy for the Cylons to spot them in. They were both hurting, but they couldn't rest yet.

"All right. Time to continue this conversation on the go." She pulled herself to her feet, only wincing slightly, and turned to stare at where Lee still lay on the ground. "Are you getting up?"

"Don't think it's physically possible."

Kara stuck out her hand. "What the frak did they do to you?"

He gritted his teeth and grabbed the hand she offered. "What's with your morbid fascination for all the gritty details of the tortures I've gone through?"

"Collecting ideas for future use." He rolled his eyes as she pulled him to his feet. Immediately, they staggered a few feet together as he got his bearings. Kara slipped her arm underneath his and braced his body with her other hand. "So, I'm curious about what you were saying before. What do you remember when the pain is present?"

"I remember all the taunts and digs they used to break down my confidence in everything I knew. They wanted me to remember that just as much as they meant for me to forget the parts of their plans I had slowly become privy to. They took away the memory of what I had done, of the mistake I made, and they left all of the resentment. They just didn't expect the psychological inference of memory to pain to be present."

"How can you be so rational at a time like this?" she asked. "I mean, for frak's sake, you just used the words 'psychological inference of memory'!"

"It was breed inside me a long time ago." He turned to look up at the sky and frowned. "I think we're in trouble."

She turned her face up to look where he was. "More trouble? I don't hear any Raiders or anything."

"No, nothing like that. It's about to rain." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the tiny drops of water began to hit them in a steady stream.

"Frak. Rain, I did not miss. Time to pick up the pace. We should be nearing that cave soon."

They limped the last hundred yards. The quickened pace was causing their bodies to ache more, and at this point, forming words was too complex an action. So there was a resonating, calm silence between them.

The cave Lee had marked was indeed exactly where he had remembered it. Kara dropped him onto the ground just inside the opening and sat down beside him. The rain hit the ground in front of them in a vicious slashing motion they had never seen before. There were leaves and other random pieces of nature flying past them as the winds began to pick up speed. Kobol was indeed a forsaken place.

Her mind caught on the one thing that would help change that. "Fire." It was the one thing she so desperately wanted all of the sudden.

Lee cringed in pain as he shifted to one side and took something out of his pocket. He flipped it in her direction. "Fire."

Kara stared at the object in her hands in disbelief. "Where the frak did you get a lighter, Lee?"

"I've been carrying it with me for a while. It was my grandfather's."

"He gave it to you?"

"No. My father did. Before I left on that mission to take out the mining base. It was a sign of faith that I would get the job done."

"Oh." Kara didn't know how he had managed to keep it while in the Cylon's custody, but she was too tired to interrogate him for the millionth time that day. She was beginning to understand that some questions weren't worth the struggle necessary to get the answer.

They fell into silence again as she searched the small cave for something to light on fire. She was surprised to find that there was a few sizeable chunks of tree trunks and branches piled towards one side of the cave. It was obvious that someone had once used this cave as a hideaway at some point. She didn't want to hazard a guess as to who or why.

The lighter lit right up to ignite the wood, and Kara let out a sigh as she fell back into her place, leaning against the cave wall. She stared at the flames until they grew to a height that made her feel confident they would not go out. Then she turned her attention back to the hurricane going on outside.

Lee's voice cut into her solitude almost immediately. "Aren't you going to ask me why the Cylons want you now?"

"No."

"You don't want to know?"

"I don't want you to go through the pain of having to tell me. We can just assume that it has something to do with this destiny they keep spouting off about."

"It has nothing to do with destiny. I did this to you, not some nameless prophet or god. I damned you."

She shook her head. "I don't buy it."

"Kara, would you look at me?" he demanded.

She hesitated a moment before she turned towards him. His face was contorted in pain, but she could tell he was concentrating to get the words out. This confession meant a lot to him. "Go on," she said softly.

"The toasters are desperate to make a human-Cylon hybrid. They tried with Helo, and it didn't work. Boomer got too attached to him. So they tried with me."

"And?"

"And I don't believe they were successful. Seems like they couldn't get the pregnancy to stick. "

"That's my boy," she said, patting his crotch with a laugh.

He shrugged away from her a little. "Would you get off? You're so inappropriate."

"That's my mild name. So, your little soldiers decided to hold a mutiny?"

"From what I gathered, yes. That was when I made the slip-up. I drew their attention to you, and I think it made them realize the mistake they had made. They were searching for the perfect mate for a Cylon so that their hybrid could be born. They thought they had found it in me, but it didn't pan out. And then they realized how similar you and I are when you get to the core of us. That was when the idea of using a human woman came to them."

"They want to impregnate me? All this fighting is because the toasters are dying to knock me up?"

"Yes."

"Frak," she said, dropping her head into her hands. "Frak. Frak. Frak."

"Yes."

"That wasn't an offer," she said, looking up to glare at him.

"Oh well. I'm too tired anyone." He let out a small laugh which turned into an all-out coughing fit. Kara looked at him in concern as she saw him stare down at his hand.

"Is everything all right?"

"I'm bleeding."

"Of course you're bleeding. You just fought a whole squad of Cylons."

"No. From the coughing." He held his hand out for her to see. Kara noticed that it was shaking rather noticeably. There was a small smear of red across the palm that looked fresh. The rest of the blood on his body had either dried or been washed off by the rain. "I think I'm really hurt."

"All the more reason for us to figure out a way off the planet."

"What can we do?"

"Well, first, we can start by getting you out of those clothes. They're all tattered and torn. Not much of a cover for your body." She reached out to grab the hems of his tanks. "Plus, they're absolutely freezing wet. Doing more damage than benefit. And the women of Galactica will be so pissed off if they found out I let an opportunity to get you half naked go by without seizing it."

Lee let her pull the tops off of him without protest. As soon as his bare skin hit the air, though, the shivering began to get worse. Kara slipped her arms around him and pulled herself into an embrace. He pulled one of her hands away from his side and rested it against his chest, tightly grasped in his own hand.

"Are we really going to make it out of here?" she asked after a moment.

"There's nothing we can't do together, Kara. It's a proven fact."

"I'm glad you have faith."

"So do you." He opened one eye and looked down at her. "And don't think I've ever doubted that. Ever."

The weight of his words hit her like a brick wall. He was referring to the talk they had before the mission that had come so close to taking his life. Like always, he was letting her off the hook for the mistakes she had made.

"I didn't mean it. Not really," she said, forcing the tears that wanted to fall back down into her body.

"It's okay. I understand."

Those kind words broke her concentration, and a sob escaped. It was quickly followed by another, and before she could even think to stop it, she was weeping into his arms. She felt herself repeating "I'm sorry" over and over again even as he told her to stop. Kara thought she might cry forever. She probably would have, too, if Lee hadn't fallen into another fit of coughing.

Kara frantically held his shoulders steady as she saw a pool of red form at the corner of his mouth. They needed to get back to Galactica soon, but if this hurricane weather kept up, that wasn't an option. Her eyes fell down to where the firelight flickered against his bare skin, and she did a double take. Small, precise pink lines trailed in a haphazard pattern across his chest and down onto his arms. She reached a hand out hesitantly to touch the skin. "What did those Cylons do to you before I got there?" she asked, still staring.

"Those are old wounds, Kara," he said, pulling her hand away from his chest. "I told you that the Cylons tested my physical body. Pain was a key element that they were interested in."

"They cut you." Her eyes darted away from the scars to stare at his face. "I never noticed."

"I tried to keep it hidden. It wouldn't serve any purpose, letting others know. The pain from these wounds is gone." He smiled at her and squeezed her hand. "You know, I really thought if anyone would have noticed it would have been you. I clearly remember a time in the past twenty-four hours where you had me pinned up against a wall half-naked."

"I wasn't close enough to see."

"You were breathing in my ear."

"No, I wasn't."

"Trust me. A man doesn't forget when a beautiful woman is that close."

The way his eyes were bearing into her made a blush creep up against her cheeks. She prayed to the gods that the light was poor enough to hide it. "So, we have a little time on our hands," she said, smiling at him. "I thought that maybe you would feel like having a little more sharing time."

"What do you want to know now? I don't think I've acted very suicidal in the past few hours. No need for an intervention from the CAG."

"You tried to sacrifice yourself to keep me out of the fight."

"That was more of a desperate move to keep you alive rather than a desperate move to get myself killed. There's a difference."

"Duly noted." Kara rested her head against his shoulder. "In all seriousness, I would like to hear about how exactly you got off the Cylon base on this planet. You always glaze over the details."

"It wasn't that hard. They unlocked my chains and left me alone in the room."

"Chains?"

"They had to keep me prisoner somehow."

"But chains? That's so primitive."

"They're machines."

She nodded her head slightly and sighed. "So they left you alone in a room. Then what?"

"I made my way out of the room and started trying to piece together where a hangar bay would be. I didn't encounter any machines, but then I didn't really expect it. The Cylons told me they were setting me free. I didn't understand it at the time. They wanted me to return to the Fleet. The day they unlocked my chains was the day the Fleet entered this system. I think they were just waiting for you to show up."

"But why was it so important to have you return to the Fleet?"

"It seems like I've been sentenced to be the bait in the trap to capture you, no matter what I do. If it's not the Cylons, it's someone else," he said with a laugh. "I stole a Raider to take off the base without knowing that I was playing right into the toasters' hands. I didn't remember it was you they wanted at the time. I just knew that I would die if I didn't get away."

"Even if you had known, escaping was the right thing to do. The Fleet could have protected both of us if they had known."

"The rest is just simple. I flew out in the atmosphere and was surprised to see a Raptor floating there. I hitched a ride beneath it and was rewarded with a free ticket back to my home."

Kara nodded. It was rather pleasant to be able to ask Lee questions again and actually have him answer without using that acid-laced tone of voice she had gotten so used to hearing. Almost like normal, even.

"Any other questions while we're having the interrogation portion of our little cave visit?"

"Just one," she said with a smirk. "How the frak did you get that Raider to fly so fast? It took me hours."

"You were working with a bum knee and a ship that had been shot down. Mine was in pristine condition."

"You can't tell me that you weren't in pain yourself, though."

"All right. Fine. I admit it. I'm just a better pilot than you."

She smacked his arm playfully. "Don't even joke about something that we both know is a blatant lie."

He started coughing again, and she braced him between her body and the wall. It was already getting worse. "Don't do this to me, Lee," she screamed as his head drooped for a moment.

"Do what?" he said, popping his head back up.

"Die."

"Trust me. I'm not trying," he said, closing his eyes and letting out a deep breath.

"I don't know if I can get off this planet without you."

"Yes, you can. Me being here is probably only holding you back."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"Really? What good have I done you so far?"

"You've given me the strength to take on six Cylons, for starters. Just to make sure you were okay, I risked my life. There's not many people I do that for. But you mean a lot to me, Lee. I don't think you realize what you've done for me since the Cylons attacked. I was fraked up with too many issues to count when Galactica was being decommissioned. And slowly but surely as the world around us collapsed, you managed to make me face each one and fix it. Having you with me makes me forget that the world is so hopeless and our lives are so screwed-up right now. It's just you and me joking and laughing like we always did. I know it hasn't been that way a lot lately, but it doesn't matter. I still draw strength for knowing you're there. Being with you erases all the pain I've ever felt. It gives me hope that no matter how much I've fraked up, I'm still worth something. Somehow, being with you fixes me. You make me unbroken."

She stared up at him, waiting for any sort of sign that he understood what she was trying to tell him. It had been surprisingly easy to speak from her heart. That was just another thing he had done for her. When she wasn't badly beaten and stranded on the forsaken planet of the gods, she'd have to remember to add that to the list of things she had to pay him back for.

The silence hung between them until she was almost sure he didn't have a clue how to respond to her words. Then, he turned and smiled at her. "You took on five Cylons, Kara, not six. That last one was mine."

She rolled her eyes and laughed. "Frak off."

"I love you, too, kid," he muttered, closing his eyes and pulling her in tight against him.

She smiled despite the hopelessness of their situation and let the constant worries plaguing her fade away. This was a rare moment of peace between them, and she wanted to savor it. Her body began to relax inch by inch until all the things that worried her so much melted away with the rest of the world.

* * *

Kara woke up, shaking from head to toe.

She was used to having dreams that shook her to the core. Living a life surrounded constantly by death insured that. But she had never had dreams like this. Not even once in her life.

They had started out innocently enough, a whirlwind of the past few months on Galactica. The main events centered around Lee and the guilt over how much she had hurt him. This part was nothing new. Her guilt constantly surfaced when she wasn't awake to push it back.

The thing that differed so greatly with this dream was her mind went past the present guilt. Usually, the dreams ended with her wallowing in self-pity and doubt, pushed to her breaking point. This time, Lee magically showed up like a shining white knight to pull her out of the black hole. He saved her from crashlanding and dying by the hands of the Cylons, and he brought her home to Galactica.

Their lives went on from day-to-day, fighting whatever enemy came their way. But it was a lot happier than ever before. Kara suddenly had someone to support her at every turn. This Lee of her dreams pulled her to the sides of corridors and kissed her senseless because she had had a long day and he knew she needed distraction. This Lee backed her up on every decision she made as a CAG even if it was the President doubting her choice. This Lee arranged for the hangar bay to be empty so that he could join together her love of flying and his love for her in the cockpit of a Viper in the most basic sense. This Lee kept begging her at all the right times to give in to his constant pleas to make their love permanent.

Then, the most unsettling part. She found no reason to say no one day so she didn't. And the very next day she found herself walking down the hangar bay, arm in arm with the Commander. The whole area had been decorated by the deck crew with things like white banners and some sort of exotic flower which she hadn't known were still in existence. Everyone was wearing dress blues except for her. She looked down to see herself wearing the simplest dress of white and reached up to feel the flower tucked carefully behind her ear.

And then there was Lee. Just standing there at the end of the long aisle formed by the people standing around. He was smiling that smile he said was only for her. The one that reminded her of the brightness when a Viper target exploded and made her feel twice as complete.

She had slowed slid down the aisle to stand next to him, and he turned to her and said, "If you want this to happen, you need to wake up right now, Kara."

When she gave him a look of confusion, he simply leaned over to kiss her lightly on the cheek and whisper in her ear, "I love you. Never forget that."

And then he pushed her away and screamed, "WAKE UP!"

Which brought her to the present moment of shaking so desperately in the arms of the man who represented her future. The fear wasn't going away either. Kara decided she had encountered this type of fright too many times to stubbornly refuse the only solution that had ever been effective.

"Lee," she whispered, shaking his arm lightly. When he didn't respond, she began to shake it harder. "Lee. Wake up."

She suddenly realized that Lee's chest was rising and falling in a slow, rhythm-less pattern. His hands and face were cool to her touch, and she was having trouble pulling up a pulse. Shock was setting in. And the reality of what was going on hit her like a brick.

He was dying right in front of her eyes.

"Lee Adama! You wake up this instant!" she yelled through the tears that had begun to fall. She shook him as hard as she could, ignoring the pain that suddenly flared up throughout her whole body. Silently, she screamed at the gods to let her take all his pain if it would give him just one moment to clear his head and fight to stay alive. "Wake up," she growled again as she reached down to blow air into his open mouth, praying it was enough. She hated that her mind suddenly decided to point out how she had slacked off during those life saving technique classes back in the Academy.

Kara silently prayed that she was doing this right as she lay her mouth against his again. She felt him cough against her lips slightly. Then, there was a faint whisper almost as if it were in reply to prayer. "I'm too tired, Kara. Leave me alone."

"Frak no!" she yelled and smacked him hard across the face.

"Gods. There was no need for that," he hissed softly as he opened his eyes slightly to look at her. The blow had made him quickly coherent.

"You stopped breathing, Lee," she spit out moving a few feet back as the truth to her words hit home. "Now I need you to drop the whole stubborn act and listen to me for a few seconds. You are not going back to sleep, no matter how tired you feel, because you are not going to die on me. I'm not that good at the whole life saving thing when I'm outside a Viper cockpit so don't make me try to remember all those things I was taught during basic training."

"You didn't listen anyway."

"Exactly. So what don't you do me a favor and just swallow your pride and accept that you're hurting."

"We need to have a talk about the whole pride swallowing thing," he whispered, still staring at her. She took his continued consciousness as a good sign that he was listening to what she was screaming. "I want you to take that Viper back to Galactica. I admit that I'm hurting really bad, and I don't know how much longer I can hold on without medical attention."

"Now you're trying to guilt me into leaving you behind, Lee? I thought we had gone over this properly before, but obviously not." Kara reached out to slip her arm underneath his body and moved to haul him up to his feet. She didn't feel him helping her pull him to his feet, but he wasn't fighting. She took that as a good sign. "Nothing you can say is going to make me leave you because I cannot do this without you."

"You could get off this planet in two seconds without me, Kara."

"You idiot. I wasn't talking about getting off the planet. Of course I could get off this planet on my own."

"Good to know we're in agreement," he said with a small laugh. Kara felt that was another small victory. Laughter wasn't an option for someone who was dying.

"We need to start moving back towards where I crashed if we're going to get out of this mess," she said, staring at the foliage in front of them.

"I don't understand. Why are we going back there?"

"Explanations are going to have to wait because it's one thing at time right now, and that means getting you moving. Starting with the left foot." She found herself dragging him along more than he was actually walking on his own, but after the first ten yards or so, he began to support more of his weight. "See? You're doing just fine now."

"Wasn't I before?"

"You were definitely not. I was scared for a second that I was losing you."

"Now it wouldn't be that traumatic to lose me, would it?"

"Frak, Lee. If you haven't learned yet just how traumatic it is for me to lose you, then you're really stupid." She smiled at him. "Turns out you're one of my favorite things about being alive."

"You're such a sap."

"Comes with the job," she said with a laugh.

They settled into silence as they both concentrated on moving. The pain was still there, and the threat of a Cylon attack sat on the edge of their thoughts. Kobol was no longer such a hopeful place to be.

As Kara moved to help him over a piece of tree in their path, she felt him stumble to a pause. "Something wrong?"

"You have to promise me something, Kara."

"I'm not leaving you. No way."

Lee ignored her. "I need you to promise me that if it comes down to it, that you will leave me behind. You cannot let the Cylons get you."

"If I didn't know better, I would think that was fear in your voice."

Kara pulled on his arm to try to get him going, but he just shrugged around and hobbled to lean against a tree. "You don't understand what they'll do if they get their hands on you."

"I know. You've told me enough of what they've done to you that I don't really want to imagine how it would feel."

"No. They are going to want to impregnate you, Kara. They will force it on you in the worst ways imaginable. You will feel violated. You will feel used. And there'll be no way out. You'll be stuck." He shook his head. "I cannot let that happen so you have to promise me that you will leave me behind if it comes down to that."

"You really want me to make this stupid promise?"

"If it lets me know you're safe, yes, that's what I want."

Kara stared at him a moment before nodding. "Then, fine. If it's the last option, I will leave you behind."

Lee took a deep breath and, without a word, took a few tentative steps in the direction they had been heading. After a second, Kara followed behind and slipped her arm around his waist again. She wasn't fully sure if she had been telling him the truth about leaving him behind if it came to that. But he seemed to believe her so that was enough for now.

It didn't help that on top of semi-truthful promises, Kara was still desperately trying to sift through the dream she had just had and what it meant. The prophetic nature of it was unsettling. Had her dream Lee actually woken her up so that she could save him in real life? Was it a gift from the gods or somehow all part of the Cylon master plan? Was it odd that she didn't care who had made it happen? She was just glad that she had listened to her heart.

It surprised her, how easy it had become for her to give up on what was the proper thing to do in their circumstances. Following what she thought was right for her felt so much better. Somehow, she felt like that was what Lee had always meant for her to learn. Every time he scolded her for putting her duty above fixing the issues she had with herself, that was for a purpose.

Maybe if they got out of this, she could tell him that she finally realized what he was doing all these years.

"So why are we heading to the crash site?" Lee choked out, the pain evident in his voice, as his still-intact Viper came into view.

She gave him her best 'you-shouldn't-have-asked" face and bit her lip. "Well. It's hard to explain."

"Try me."

"Okay." Kara's mind had come up with this plan while she was still half under the intoxication of sleep. Now that she actually had to say it out loud, she wasn't so sure of herself. Figuring there was no other way to get them off the planet, she took a deep breath and began her explanation. "Have you ever fraked in the cockpit of a Viper?"

He just gave her a horrified look and pulled to a stop. "Explain."

"Obviously you haven't otherwise you would realize where I'm going with this." She looked at him out of the sides of her eyes. "You haven't, right?"

"I don't see why whether or not I've fraked someone in a Viper cockpit has anything to do with getting off this planet."

"That's a no," she said with a smirk. "If you had done it, you would know that theoretically two people can fit into the cockpit even if it's a tight squeeze. What I'm thinking is that it might be a tad bit uncomfortable, but there should be enough room to get your Viper off the ground with both of us inside."

"That's a stupid idea."

"I'm working on the fly here, Lee. Give me a break." She leaned him against the side of the ship in question. "Besides, do you have any better ideas?"

"Nothing quite as out of the box as you, no."

"Out of the box saves the day," she said with a laugh. "And it beats wasting time making promises I never intend to keep."

"I knew you were lying," he hissed, giving her about the meanest look she had ever seen on his face.

"Like you actually thought I would leave you behind. As long as I'm still breathing, you will make it off this planet with me."

"I hate you."

"So you've said. But let's not get off topic here." She moved her head up to look up at the cockpit. "We need to figure out how we're going to get up there."

"No problem. I used to skip the whole ladder thing all the time when I was assigned to the Atlantia." Lee went to grab a hold of the wing and swayed slightly.

Kara's hands immediately darted out to steady him. "You're not going to be able to do this. You've got one foot in the grave right now."

"Just give me second."

Kara watched him stare at the metal wing in front of him before grabbing hold and slowly and painfully hoisting himself up inch by inch so that he lay across the metal surface. She noticed that his face had gone rather pale again. "Are you going to pass out on me, Captain?" she hissed as she grabbed the wing exactly where he had before.

"My hands just throbbed for a second there," he said, grabbing hold of her wrist and helping hoist her up. "I'm better now."

"Just don't die," she scolded, standing up. Her hands pried open the canopy and she looked down into the cockpit. "There should be just enough room. Get in."

Lee didn't argue with her command. That was a sure fire sign that he really was in too much pain. They never let an opportunity to argue pass by. All signs pointed to his hurt condition improving, but she knew that most of it was probably a front. He was being brave because he finally understood that she wasn't leaving him behind. He had to make it off this planet if he wanted to be sure she did the same. So he was doing his best to put up the façade that he could do just that.

"Come on," Lee smirked as he patted his lap once for her to sit down.

Kara smirked. "You're loving this."

"It was all in my master plan," he said with a shrug as she lowered herself down between his legs. "Figured that making you crash land and destroy your bird was the only way to get you this close."

"Very funny," Kara said absentmindedly settling herself down into the cockpit seat.

Lee grabbed onto her waist and pulled her back into him. The right side of her head rested gently against his cheek. "You know I have been in a Viper cockpit with someone else before."

Kara's eyes got bright with the idea that by-the-book Lee Adama had actually done something risky. "Really?"

"Yeah. On Atlantia."

"And what did you think?" she asked.

"I'm thinking the way you talk about it, I must have been doing something wrong. It was not an enjoyable experience."

"It's supposed to be uncomfortable, Lee. But you're also supposed to be so busy that you don't even notice."

"Maybe you can help me with that when we're back on Galactica."

"You wished," she said with a huff. Her eyes went from joking to completely somber in seconds as they looked at the controls in front of the two of them with dread.

"Problem?"

"I'm not sure how we're going to pilot this. Normally, I would just suggest that you do it since you're in the more stable position. But your hands are too burnt for you to get the steering right."

"So you do it and I'll let myself slid back to sleep. You can wake me up when we get to Galactica."

"No can do, flyboy. My knee's still smarting from the crashlanding. I don't think it can handle the pressures of space. So I could steer but there's no possibility of thrusting."

"Okay, so we'll do it together," he suggested.

She gave him a look of complete and utter surprise. "Are you crazy? There's no way we can do it."

"Pull the hatch closed, Kara. This is my only shot to get you off this planet. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be that hard. We already fly together as if we're one person. It should be easy to do the same thing only with both of us in the same cockpit."

The truth to his words hit her abruptly. This was really their only option of getting off the planet if she still refused to abandon him to return by herself. And there had always been something special that went on between them when they were in the air together. Letting out a deep breath, Kara reached out and slammed the canopy door down. "All right. Let's power this thing up and go home."

The Viper hummed to life, softly quenching any fear either pilot might have had about Cylon tampering. The machines were too focused on capturing the two of them that they ignored their only definite means of escape.

Kara finished the quick pre-flight checklist and smiled back at her co-pilot. "Are you ready for this?"

"Let's do it."

Kara pulled back on the stick as Lee simultaneously pressed on the thruster pedal. The ship bounced awkwardly off the ground, but after a few screams of correction on both their parts, they were in the air.

"See? Not so bad," Lee said with a nervous laugh.

"We're not in space yet, flyboy."

They both lapsed into a calm as they concentrated on keeping their ship in the air. They flew in low against the canopy of the trees at first until they got a feel for what they were doing. Both were on edge in case the machines realized they were making their escape.

Lee was tensed up as he pushed himself as hard as he could. His body was struggling against him. It wanted to rest, not to keep moving and causing itself pain. He didn't have an option to listen to what his every nerve ending was screaming. He had to get Kara home if he was ever going to feel relief from the burden of his guilt.

"What's that?" Kara asked, pointing out the front of the cockpit.

Pushing all thoughts of guilt away, Lee shifted so that he could see what she was referring to. There was a piece of scorched earth about three hundred feet below, a sign of an explosion that occurred not too long again. He noticed the spare pieces of metal and burnt husk of a building that had once stood tall.

The recognition of what it had once been was immediate. He let out a chuckle.

"What?" she asked, turning around to give him a funny look.

"Nothing. I just remembered that I might not have taken that Cylon Raider directly off planet and back to the Fleet. I think I took a little detour."

Kara turned back to stare at the remains of what had once been a Cylon base before turning to give him the biggest, brightest smile he had ever seen on her face. "I knew they couldn't break you."

His lips turned up in what he could only describe as a mirror of her emotion. "Let's go home."

The Viper picked up speed as Kara steered it straight up through the atmosphere. There was nothing to stand in their way now that they both knew the Cylon base had been destroyed. Lee had unknowingly saved his own life months earlier when he had give the toasters one last parting shot.

Once they hit the stars, Lee lost all the restraint he had been hanging onto and pushed the ship to its breaking point in speed. He didn't want to be anywhere near this retched planet any longer. The fact that Kara didn't scold him for his reckless driving was not lost on him. She wanted out, too.

As they pulled within comm range, Lee finally let himself believe that they could actually be returning home. He felt the resolve to stay awake slowly slid away as the Fleet got closer.

"Do you want to do the honors or should I?" Kara asked, still staring ahead at the space they had yet to cross.

"You probably should. I'm feeling a little light-headed."

She turned around to look at him and her eyes widened with concern. "Do not do this to me now, Lee. We're almost there."

"I'm fine," he said, shaking his head and giving her the best smile he could. "The pain's just starting to drift back a little."

She nodded, holding his eyes for a moment more before turning back to the Viper controls. "Attention, Galactica. This is Starbuck and Apollo, requesting clearance to land in whatever fraking flight tube you can make available for us."

"Starbuck, Galactica." Dee's voice was a welcome sound to their ears. "We're only registering one Viper on our scans. Did you say Apollo was with you?"

"I'm sitting on his lap," she said with a small smirk. She could feel Lee's breath against her neck as he let out a small chuckle and suddenly felt very proud that she was the one who could make him laugh despite all the pain.

This time it was the Old Man's voice that responded to her words. "Starbuck, now is not the time to be joking. Where is Apollo?" The concern for his son was evident in his voice. Kara had been right to refuse to leave him behind, no matter how hard it got.

"I'm right here, Galactica," Lee choked out. Kara could hear his strained tone as he struggled to talk through the pain. "We're coming in with only one Viper."

"We need to be cleared now, Dee," Kara yelled into the comm as she saw Lee's head drop slightly before he pulled it back up. He was losing consciousness.

"Tunnel C is open for docking. Bring her in, Starbuck."

"Acknowledged. We're going to need the med crew to meet us, and you should probably get Doc Cottle to the sickbay. Apollo and I took out six Cylons together, and our bodies are a little worse for the wear." She cut off the comm line before anyone could ask her more questions. There wasn't time to answer. She stole a glance back at her fellow pilot. "Do you think we can land this thing without scorching up the flight deck?"

"I might be half dead, but I can land a Viper," Lee hissed as he pulled back on their thrust.

Together, they did exactly as they said and performed a perfect three point landing. Kara smiled as she had realized Lee had been right all along. They already flew like they were the same person. Actually flying the same ship was no different. They were two halves of a pilot whole.

There were a few familiar clanks against the side of the ship as the deck crew wheeled the docking stairs into position. "Are you ready to admit that I was right not to leave you behind?" she asked, watching the cockpit hatch hiss and begin to fly up. When he didn't respond, she turned to taunt him more.

Kara froze as she saw him slumped against the back of the cockpit seat, a small line of blood trickling down from his nose. She ripped the safety belt off and twisted around to grab his collar. "No, no, no. Don't do this to me, Lee. Now when we're home," she whispered, shaking him slightly. Her hand unconsciously reached up to rub the blood away. "Come on, Lee. You only have to be strong for a few more seconds."

He didn't respond.

"I need a medic in here now!" she screamed to anyone who could hear. "Fraking come on, people!"

The next few minutes were a blur. A couple of the men standing around the hanger helped pull her and Lee out of the cockpit. They were careful not to jolt Lee too much as they laid him down on a stretcher and started hooking him into a few of the emergency machines. Kara silently thanked the gods that Dee and the CIC had taken her request for medical personnel seriously. She had been right to have worried that they would be needed immediately.

When the medics finally convinced Kara they couldn't do their job properly if she didn't let go of Lee's hand, she found herself placed on a stretcher and immediately injected with some kind of pain relieving drug. She didn't even have a second to protest. The drug in combination of the stress of the past twenty-four hours and the injuries she had sustained herself knocked her out within thirty seconds.

The last thing she felt herself wonder was whether or not Lee would be alive when she woke up, and then the pain was gone.

* * *

Kara woke up in the middle of a curtained off area of sickbay. She waited for her eyes to focus as there was a gentle shuffling next to her. Her head still hurt as bad as when she was down on Kobol.

"Sleeping Beauty awakens," Helo said with a laugh, releasing her hand and standing up. "You've been out for almost two days now, Kara. I thought that maybe your luck had finally run out."

"Not until I say so," she said with a grunt as she pulled herself up. The familiar stabs of pain in her ribs greeted her. And she knew it hadn't all been a bad dream.

"Doc Cottle says that it's a miracle you didn't die," Helo said. "Over half your ribs were busted. I don't even think I want to know how you pulled that one off."

"Toasters," she said as if that explained it all.

"Right." Helo lapsed into silence for a moment before looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "Aren't you going to ask about him? I would have thought those would be the first words out of your mouth now that you're awake."

"I'm scared," she said simply.

"He's fine, Kara. You got him back to Galactica with plenty of time to spare. So there's absolutely nothing to be scared about."

Kara let her breath out in a whoosh as she realized that Helo wouldn't lie to her about something as important as this. If he said Lee was alive, then it was the truth. She felt the dam she kept up to hold her emotions inside break as the relief washed over her. She didn't even fight to hold back the tears.

Helo made no move to pretend that she wasn't showing such an obvious sign of relief. He knew how much Lee Adama meant to her. Even if he didn't know, he was already hearing the rumors of what the Fleet's two top pilots had gone through down on the surface of Kobol. It sounded like the worst hell one could imagine, and yet they got themselves back here, together and in relatively one piece.

It also sounded like the two of them loved and respected each other a hell of a lot. And that just wasn't something you questioned or teased, in Helo's opinion.

"Where is he?" Kara asked tentatively after she had gotten the tears under control. "When can I see him?"

"He's still sleeping off the trauma of what happened. He did wake up for an hour yesterday. Insisted that he be allowed to see me."

Kara sprang up a little. "You? Why would he want to see you?"

"Don't be insulted," Helo said with a laugh. "You were the first person he asked about when he woke up, but you were still sleeping."

She gave him a sheepish shrug and settled back down into the bed.

"He wanted me to do him a favor." Helo walked over to the table against the wall and picked something up. "He wanted me to give you this."

Kara stared in awe as Helo placed a incredibly-worn military issue jacket into her hands. Her hand went up to rub the tattered patch on the right sleeve. There were small stitches holding it in place, and she ran her hands over them as the memories began to cascade over her.

"I didn't even understand at the time that it was yours. The whole thing seemed a little odd. We were running from the Cylons with that damn Arrow of Apollo, and all of the sudden he made us take a pit stop in some dump of an apartment. He grabbed that thing off a chair, took a few guns from one of the cabinets, and ordered us to move on. I actually think we might have lost the Arrow to the Cylons because we made that stop. Told him that myself on the flight back to the Fleet." Helo shook his head with a laugh. "The stupid frakker told me that I had no idea what I was talking about, and that the stop in that apartment meant a hell of a lot more than finding some diamond-studded museum artifact."

"It was my apartment," Kara said, absentmindedly stroking the piece of clothing in her hands. "He made you stop at my old home."

"He told me to give you this, too," Helo said, holding out a piece of paper for her to take. "You should have seen him struggle to write it with the burns on his hands. I offered to do it for him, but he just glared at me. Obviously it's something important."

Kara tentatively opened the parchment and smiled. In his inky scrawl was written: "Sometimes the mere words of thank you do not begin to cover it. Lee." She stared down at the jacket for a few seconds before looking up at Helo with tears in her eyes. "It was his, you know."

"Apollo's?"

"No," she said with a smile, returning her gaze back to the jacket. "Zak's. It was his favorite jacket, and he gave it to me to paint in. He loved me that much."

"Right," Helo said, obviously thinking she had gone insane. Why would one brother who was so hopelessly in love with her risk his life just to give her a token of his younger brother's love? It made no sense. "I think you need more rest now, Starbuck."

Kara gave him a vague wave as he left the room. She knew Helo would never understand what Lee giving her this jacket meant. It was the one thing she missed most about never having the option of returning to Caprica. He had understood that without her even having to tell him once. In fact, he had understood it so much that he had risked his life and the lives of the Fleet just to make sure he picked it up for her while he was on the stupid mission from the President.

She reread his note again and wondered how long it would take before she was allowed to see him. Common sense told her neither one of them would be on their feet for days, maybe even weeks. She couldn't wait that long.

Checking real quick to make sure that no one was around to monitor what she was doing, she pushed herself to her feet. It only took a few seconds for the room to stop spinning. When it did, she slowly pushed herself along the wall until she was at the doorway. The jacket was still clutched tightly in her hand.

There were people everywhere, staring at her. It was obvious she didn't belong out of bed, but the looks of death she was sending to every person who dared to meet her eye were working. No one stopped her. In fact, one relatively young looking guy came up to her and pointed out where Lee's room was. She tried to get his name so she could thank him later, but her mind just wouldn't focus.

Eventually, she made it into his room and found herself standing beside his bed, looking down at him. He looked a lot less pale than when she had last saw him. Things were obviously healing quickly. He had always been something of a fighter. Smiling, she rubbed his cheek softly with the back of her hand.

Lee surprised her by immediately opening his eyes and turning to look at her. "Kara."

"Hi."

His look of relief melted into one of confusion. "I didn't realize they put you in the same room as me."

"They didn't. I broke out of my makeshift prison cell to come get a look at you."

"How am I looking?"

"Pretty fraking good."

Lee motioned for her to sit down. "You look tired."

"I am," she said resolutely. Looking the bed over, she decided if she was going to sit down, she might as well go the rest of the way.

Lee didn't complain when she stretched out to lay next to him. He simply wrapped his arms around her and let out a long sigh. "Not as comfy as some cave in the rains of Kobol," he said with a laugh.

"It will do." She smiled up at him. "Thanks for the present, by the way."

"You know, I wasn't sure when the right time would be to give it to you. I didn't want it to seem like I was sending you the wrong message."

"No, I got your message loud and clear. And I appreciate it."

They lay in silence for so long that Kara was almost afraid he had fallen back to sleep on her.

"So, what do you think we do now?" he finally whispered, pulling her in a little tighter.

"Well, we know what the Cylons want."

"You."

She nodded. "Right. Me. And we know what they can't have.

"You."

"And they can't have you either."

"So I guess that's progress," he pointed out.

"The Cylons made one big mistake in all this."

"And what would that be?"

"They didn't poison your mind enough to break through how much you loved me," she whispered. "And they couldn't stop me from fighting to keep you safe. If they really wanted to bring either one of us down, they would have had to take us both at the same time. And even then, I'm not so sure it would have worked."

Lee kissed her lightly on the top of her head. "The toasters didn't understand that there was no way they could win that battle. You and I are just too strong to give in to something as weak as that. There's too much past between us."

"Fraking idiot toasters," she said, yawning slightly.

"Doc Cottle is going to kill us when he finds out that we're together. I think he separated us on purpose to speed up the healing process. I would pay money to see his reaction."

"You know who else I would kill to see?" She grinned. "The Old Man."

"He'll just laugh and say that the Cylons were idiots to think they could prey on our vulnerability. He never lost faith in what we could do."

"He is one of the few people that understand why you and I work so well. Hell, he's probably the only person. Because I know I sure as hell don't understand us."

"Me, either. I kind of like it that way."

"Me, too."

Kara felt Lee's hand rest lightly on her neck as she felt the beginning twinges of the rest she still desperately needed take hold. "I think they're going to have to start up that pool again."

"The one to see how long it takes us to forget our responsibilities and just go at it like two sex-starved teenagers?"

"Yeah, that's the one," Kara said, not surprised at all that Lee knew what she was talking about.

"Well, let me know which day you sneak a bet on and I'll make sure to have you clear my schedule."

She let out a small laugh as sleep began to take over all her senses.

A sort of calm fell over her as she suddenly understood she had finally gotten her wish from months before. She had been able to apology to Lee for doubting him on the mission that started this whole mess. She had apologized, he had forgiven her, and they both had lived to tell the tale. Things had finally returned to the state they liked to call normal in this ragtag group of survivors.

For once, she actually imagined the Lords of Kobol smiling down at her. All those times she had talked to the gods and asked them to let her know why they tortured her, they had never answered. Now she understood that this was the reason her whole life had been full of pain and suffering. She had been working towards this point.

Lee shifted in his sleep, and Kara felt her lips stir into a small smile.

This was what she had been praying for all along.

Strength in the guise of Lee Adama.


End file.
